Decreasing rainfall and increased groundwater use are threatening vegetation and ultimately biodiversity in the Mediterranean biome. Plants that depend on groundwater are particularly vulnerable.
However, there is a lack of harmonized biome-wise mapping of the distribution and extent of pGDV in the Mediterranean. To address this challenge, we integrated global geodata on groundwater-vegetation interaction, soil, topography, land cover and hydrogeology with a simple index. Our index allows the detection of areas with suitable conditions to hold pGDV where vegetation behavior also indicates groundwater use.
The Mediterranean map reveals that regions with high pGDV are distributed throughout the entire biome. We also see an increased occurrence in coastal lowlands and in riverine landscapes. These areas indicate precipitation-independent high vitality and evapotranspiration of natural vegetation in low permeable valleys or on low slopes where water accumulates and the groundwater table is shallow while soil properties allow infiltration.
More potentially groundwater-dependent vegetation was found in coastal lowlands and riverine landscapes. Credit: L. El-Hokayem We were surprised that the proportion of high pGDV was lower than estimated in a recent global meta-analysis . However, only one tenth of the catchments in the biome have an area share of high pGDV above 50%. These catchments may be prioritized for further analysis of GDV. We tested the plausibility of our results against known GDV locations in Italy and California and found good agreement.and high computational power when applied on a large scale.
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