Abstract
Ecosystem water use efficiency (WUEe), defined as the amount of carbon biomass produced to water loss, is an important ecohydrological index characterizing the relationship between the carbon and water cycles. Understanding the WUEe dynamics and its controlling factors is essential for ecosystem management and restoration. This study analyzed spatiotemporal variations and controlling factors of WUEe over major basins, climate zones, and land covers in India during 2002–2015 using remote sensing-based datasets. A substantial spatial variation in WUEe was observed in India across different spatial scales. WUEe was high in shrubland ecosystems, followed by forest, cropland, and grassland ecosystems. The country-average WUEe showed a significant increasing trend over the study duration. Eleven biotic and abiotic controlling factors were analyzed in this study, namely, CO2 concentration, evapotranspiration (ET), humidity, leaf area index (LAI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), precipitation, soil moisture, solar radiation, temperature, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and wind speed. Among these factors, solar radiation, CO2 concentration, and temperature were found most sensitive factors to WUEe at the country scale. Other factors, such as NDVI, soil moisture, and humidity play a significant role at local scales in some regions. The inland drains in Rajasthan and west-flowing rivers from Kutch to Saurashtra were found most sensitive to controlling factors than other basins. These findings provide important insights into ecosystem functioning and water use patterns across different scales in India and will be helpful for water resources and ecosystem management.
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Some or all data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Climate Research Unit (CRU), India Meteorological Department (IMD), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group (NTSG), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) California Institute of Technology, and Princeton University for providing the datasets for this study. VKB also acknowledges the support of IIT Roorkee and the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, through the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) for carrying out this research for grant number PM-31-22-659-414.
Funding
VB was partly supported by the Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF) provided by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, for his Ph.D. work. The work was also partly supported by Faculty Initiation Grant (FIG) provided by IIT Roorkee to AS under the grant number HYN/FIG/100917.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Vijaykumar Bejagam. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Vijaykumar Bejagam and Akriti Singh, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
1. Sensitivity of 11 abiotic and biotic factors to WUEe was analyzed.
2. The country-average WUEe showed a significant increasing trend in India.
3. WUEe was higher in shrubland, followed by forest and cropland ecosystems.
4. Solar radiation, CO2 concentrations, and temperature were identified as the most sensitive factors to WUEe.
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Bejagam, V., Singh, A. & Sharma, A. Spatiotemporal variability and controlling factors of ecosystem water use efficiency in India. Theor Appl Climatol 152, 813–827 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04418-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04418-z