NCEAS Group 2 Project: A road map

Macro-ecology: Drought

Link to Google Doc for comments about Drought

Title: California Drought - how bad is it?

Objective: Drought effects on natural and agricultural ecosystems: Implications for water, carbon, and socio-economic impacts.

How severe is the current drought in CA? We plan to synthesize ecosystem CO2 dynamics and remotely sensed indices to frame the severity of the CA drought.

1. How bad is current drought? How do drought patterns vary in space and time?
   What is the spatial and temporal dynamics of drought?
   map drought
   data: 1895-2000
   ecoregions - need to find the shapefiles
   pdsi - http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/wwdt/time/
   http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/pdsi.html
   Analysis - trend analysis
   Antonio, Tim

2. How much has C sink strength been reduced by the current drought?
   MODIS data EVI - Enhanced Vegetation Index and LST - Land Surface Temperature - 1Km resolution, GPP
   FluxNet (flux files 4 sites: water and CO2 grams of carbon/m-2)
   determine sink or source of carbon to the atmosphere over time
   Mirela, Antonio, Paul, Sparkle

3. Are natural ecosystems more resilient than agricultural ecosystems?
   Quantify (map) resilience
   Compare resilience between agricult vs natural ecosystems
   To be determined - differentiate different ecosystems categories
   RUE - Rain Use Efficiency (NPP - Modis/rainfall - PRISM)
   NPP annual, GPP every 8 days, rainfall monthly
   PRISM, rainfall maps from ca.gov
   How does the ratio of crop yield to irrigation water change? Sara, Mirela, Tim, Leah, Debora

4. What are the effects of drought on ecosystem services? (INVEST) How much ground water levels changed as a consequence of drought? look at streams data from USGS to see if it has diminished

GROUP MEMBERS (9ppl)

• Mirela
• Debora
• Tim
• Paul
• Sparkle
• Sara
• Vicken
• Leah
• Antonio