Regime shifts in bistable water-stressed ecosystems due to amplification of stochastic rainfall patterns
Name
PhysRevE.91.052148.pdf
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2.47 MB
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Author(s)
Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis
Dentz, Marco
Juanes, Ruben
Date Issued
May 2015
Journal
Physical Review E
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis, Marco Dentz, and Ruben Juanes. “Regime Shifts in Bistable Water-Stressed Ecosystems Due to Amplification of Stochastic Rainfall Patterns.” Phys. Rev. E 91, no. 5 (May 2015). © 2015 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We develop a framework that casts the point water-vegetation dynamics under stochastic rainfall forcing as a continuous-time random walk (CTRW), which yields an evolution equation for the joint probability density function (PDF) of soil-moisture and biomass. We find regime shifts in the steady-state PDF as a consequence of changes in the rainfall structure, which flips the relative strengths of the system attractors, even for the same mean precipitation. Through an effective potential, we quantify the impact of rainfall variability on ecosystem resilience and conclude that amplified rainfall regimes reduce the resilience of water-stressed ecosystems, even if the mean annual precipitation remains constant.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.052148
