Do vegetation changes necessarily intensify hydrological shifts under multiyear droughts?

Abstract

: Recent observations suggest annual runoff can undergo prolonged shifts, resulting in severe reductions in streamflow generation compared to rainfall generation during and after multiyear droughts. Moreover, these shifts are expected to continue and possibly expand under a future drying climate. Some studies suggest that vegetation may be an important factor driving hydrological shifts under multiyear droughts (Gardiya Weligamage et al., 2023; Peterson et al., 2021). However, this hypothesis is yet to be tested more rigorously over larger areas that experienced rainfall-runoff shifts. Therefore, we investigate how vegetation responded to the Millennium Drought (from 1997 – 2009) in Victoria, Australia at different spatial scales and its relationship with hydrological changes. The