Enhanced drought resistance of vegetation growth in cities due to urban heat, CO 2 domes and O 3 troughs

Sustained increase in atmospheric CO 2 is strongly coupled with rising temperature and persistent droughts. While elevated CO 2 promotes photosynthesis and growth of vegetation, drier and warmer climate can potentially negate this benefit, complicating the prediction of future terrestrial carbon dynamics. Manipulative studies such as free air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) experiments have been useful for studying the joint effect of global change factors on vegetation growth; however, their results do not easily transfer to natural ecosystems partly due to their short-duration nature and limited consideration of climatic gradients and potential confounding factors, such as O 3 . Urban environments serve as a useful small-scale analogy of future climate at least in reference to CO 2 and temperature enhancements. Here, we develop a data-driven approach using urban environments as test beds for revealing the joint effect of changing temperature and CO 2 on vegetation response to drought. Using 75 urban-rural paired plots from three climate zones over the conterminous United States (CONUS), we find vegetation in urban areas exhibits a much stronger resistance to drought than in rural areas. Statistical analysis suggests the drought resistance enhancement of urban vegetation across CONUS is attributed to rising temperature (with a partial correlation coefficient of 0.36) and CO 2 (with a partial correlation coefficient of 0.31) and reduced O 3 concentration (with a partial correlation coefficient of −0.12) in cities. The controlling factor(s) responsible for urban-rural differences in drought resistance of vegetation vary across climate regions, such as surface O 3 gradients in the arid climate, and surface CO 2 and O 3 gradients in the temperate and continental climates. Thus, our study provides new observational insights on the impacts of competing factors on vegetation growth at a large scale, and ultimately, helps reduce uncertainties in understanding terrestrial carbon dynamics

Atmospheric sciences · Biology · Climate change · Climatology · Geography · Physical geography · Resistance (ecology · Urban climate · Urban heat island · Urbanization · Vegetation (pathology · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Plant responses to elevated CO2 · Urban Heat Island Mitigation · Ecology · Geology

• Unraveling the impact of urban expansion on vegetation carbon sequestration capacity

  Open Access•Jinyang Wang, Zhenfeng Shao et al.•Sustainable Cities and Society•2025

  Añadir item

• Prevalent vegetation growth enhancement in urban environment

  Open Access•Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2016

  Añadir item

• Effects of landscape composition and pattern on land surface temperature

  Open Access•Ronald C Estoque, Yumi Murayama et al.•The Science of The Total…•2017

  Añadir item

• Present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution

  Open Access•Hylke E Beck, Niklaus E Zimmermann et al.•Scientific Data•2018

  Añadir item

• Climate extremes and the carbon cycle

  Open Access•Markus Reichstein, Mona Bahn et al.•Nature•2013

  Añadir item

• Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the Modis vegetation indices

  Open Access•Alfredo Huete, Kamel Didan et al.•Remote Sensing of Environment•2002

  Añadir item

• Global Carbon Budget 2020

  Open Access•Pierre Friedlingstein, Mike O’Sullivan et al.•Earth System Science Data•2020

  Añadir item

• The 2010 Amazon Drought

  Open Access•Su Lin Lewis, Paulo Brando et al.•Science•2011

  Añadir item

• Robustness of linear mixed‐effects models to violations of distributional assumptions

  Open Access•Holger Schielzeth, Niels J Dingemanse et al.•Methods in Ecology and Evolution•2020

  Añadir item

• Landscape configuration and urban heat island effects

  Open Access•John P Casellas Connors, John Patrick Connors et al.•Landscape Ecology•2013

  Añadir item

• Changing global patterns of urban exposure to flood and drought hazards

  Open Access•Burak Güneralp, İnci Güneralp et al.•Global Environmental Change•2015

  Añadir item