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Investigating relationship between soil moisture, hydro-climatic parameters, vegetation, and climate change impacts in a semi-arid basin in Iran

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Abstract

Climate change can alter soil moisture with subsequent effects on water resources and vegetation growth. This study aims to understand the interactions and quantify the impact of climate change on soil moisture and vegetation in the Urmia Lake basin, Iran. The ERA-5 precipitation and temperature, GLDAS soil moisture, and MODIS NDVI monthly time series were used for 2001–2018. The MK test and Pearson correlation revealed the seasonal and monthly precipitation, and NDVI displayed insignificant trends, but the positive trend of temperature was observed in the cold season. At a depth of 0–10 cm, the monthly soil moisture trend indicated the highest negative trends occurring during April–May, while the lowest negative trends were in winter between December and January. Also, time-lagged (0, 1, and 2 months) correlation analysis showed soil moisture and climatic parameters of each month with short time-lagged (0 and 1 month) mostly presented significant correlations, but mid-time-lagged (2-months) correlations were not found significant with precipitation. Results showed that temperature played a more critical role than precipitation in soil moisture distribution within the study area. Investigating the impact of climate change on soil moisture by ensembles of AOGCM models under the different RCPs showed that soil moisture is influenced by temperature increasing.

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Data Availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the ERA-5-ECMWF dataset repository (ERA-5|ECMWF), and stationary data are available in IRIMO and NASA Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS).

Code availability

The software was used in this study was R, which has been using as a programming language and free software for statistical computing and graphics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Atmospheric Science & Meteorological Research Center (ASMRC), P.O. Box 1497716385, Tehran, Iran

    Abbas Ranjbar Saadatabadi & Ebrahim Fattahi

  2. Faculty of Geography University of Tehran, P.O. Box 1417466191, Tehran, Iran

    Naser Izadi, Elaheh Ghasemi Karakani & Ali Akbar Shamsipour

Authors
  1. Abbas Ranjbar Saadatabadi
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  2. Naser Izadi
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  3. Elaheh Ghasemi Karakani
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  4. Ebrahim Fattahi
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  5. Ali Akbar Shamsipour
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Correspondence to Naser Izadi.

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Saadatabadi, A.R., Izadi, N., Karakani, E.G. et al. Investigating relationship between soil moisture, hydro-climatic parameters, vegetation, and climate change impacts in a semi-arid basin in Iran. Arab J Geosci 14, 1796 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07831-8

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