Meteorological drought dominates future deficit in terrestrial water storage

Meteorological drought dominates future drought-related disturbances in terrestrial water storage This repository provides the data and analysis materials supporting the study “Meteorological drought dominates future drought-related disturbances in terrestrial water storage.”The dataset is organized by figure number and contains the processed data, intermediate analysis outputs, and plotting-ready files used to reproduce the main results of the manuscript. Study overview This study investigates how meteorological drought (MD), hydrological drought (HD), and agricultural drought (AD) affect terrestrial water storage (TWS) variability and deficits under climate change. The analysis combines GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite observations, global hydrological model simulations, CMIP6 climate forcing, standardized drought indices, multi-model ensemble analysis, moving-window sensitivity estimation, and structural equation modeling (SEM). The main objectives are to: 1. quantify historical and future changes in TWS under different climate scenarios;2. assess drought-related disturbances in TWS across multiple drought types;3. identify the relative importance of direct and indirect drought pathways affecting TWS deficits;4. evaluate regional differences in drought–TWS relationships across major climatic and hydrological hot spots. Repository structure The repository is organized into figure-level folders: Figure1: GRACE, GHM, and GCM-based terrestrial water storage anomaly time series. Figure2: Historical and projected terrestrial water storage changes. Figure3: Regional terrestrial water storage seasonal-cycle analysis. Figure4: Maximum drought duration and spatial patterns. Figure5: Regional drought-duration changes. Figure6: Terrestrial water storage sensitivity and response-timescale analysis. Figure7: Spatial patterns of terrestrial water storage sensitivity changes. Figure8: Spatial patterns of terrestrial water storage response timescales. Figure9: Global structural equation modeling effect summaries. Figure10: Spatial effects of meteorological drought on terrestrial water storage. Each folder corresponds to one figure in the manuscript and contains the data products required for reproducing the associated analysis and visualization. Climate scenarios and periods The dataset includes historical and future simulations under the following scenarios: Scenario Description Period Historical Historical reference simulation 1985–2014 SSP1-2.6 Low-emission mitigation pathway 2015–2099 SSP5-8.5 High-emission pathway 2015–2099 The future analysis focuses on two 30-year periods: Period Time range Mid-century 2030–2059 Late-century 2070–2099 Drought types and indices Three drought types are considered: Abbreviation Drought type Index MD Meteorological drought SPI, Standardized Precipitation Index HD Hydrological drought SRI, Standardized Runoff Index AD Agricultural drought SSI, Standardized Soil Moisture Index These drought indices are used to quantify drought-related disturbances in TWS and to support the SEM-based pathway analysis. Regional hot spots Seven SREX-based hot spot regions are analyzed: Code Region AMZ Amazon Basin NA Southwestern North America EUR Southern Europe CE-AF Central-East Africa SAS South Asia NS-AU Northern and Southern Australia NCP North China Plain Model and observation datasets The main TWS ensemble is based on global hydrological model simulations forced by CMIP6 climate data. The principal GHM ensemble contains 15 members from three hydrological models and five climate forcings. Global hydrological models CWatM H08 JULES-W2 Additional models used for baseline comparison include: WaterGAP2-2e MIROC-INTEG-LAND CMIP6 climate models used as GHM forcings GFDL-ESM4 IPSL-CM6A-LR MPI-ESM1-2-HR MRI-ESM2-0 UKESM1-0-LL CMIP6 models used for drought-index analysis BCC-CSM2-MR CAMS-CSM1-0 CAS-ESM2-0 CESM2 CESM2-WACCM CMCC-CM2-SR5 CMCC-ESM2 GFDL-ESM4 MPI-ESM1-2-HR NorESM2-MM TaiESM1 GRACE/GRACE-FO products Three GRACE/GRACE-FO terrestrial water storage products are used as observational references: CSR JPL GSFC Figure-level data description Figure 1: GRACE, GHM, and GCM TWS anomaly time series Contains monthly TWS anomaly time series for 24 major global basins during 2002–2024. The data include GRACE/GRACE-FO products, GHM-based estimates, GCM-related TWS estimates, ensemble means, standard deviations, and uncertainty ranges. Figure 2: Historical and projected TWS changes Contains global TWS change rates, model agreement fractions, and consistency metrics comparing historical simulations and future projections, with emphasis on late-century changes under SSP5-8.5. Figure 3: Regional TWS seasonal-cycle analysis Contains bias-corrected TWS anomalies for seven hot spot regions. The dataset includes historical, SSP1-2.6, and SSP5-8.5 simulations from the 15-member GHM ensemble. Figure 4: Maximum drought duration Contains maximum drought duration data for MD, HD, and AD, including summary statistics and spatially gridded outputs used for violin plots and global maps. Figure 5: Regional drought-duration changes Contains regional drought-duration statistics for the seven hot spot regions, with emphasis on mid-century and late-century changes under SSP5-8.5. Figure 6: TWS sensitivity and response-timescale analysis Contains sensitivity parameters and response-timescale estimates linking drought indices to TWS anomalies. Variables include sensitivity and timing parameters for SPI, SRI, and SSI. Figure 7: Spatial patterns of TWS sensitivity changes Contains spatial data describing changes in hydrological and agricultural drought sensitivity, especially late-century SSP5-8.5 changes relative to the historical baseline. Figure 8: Spatial patterns of TWS response timescales Contains spatial estimates of TWS response timescales to MD, HD, and AD under historical and future climate conditions. Figure 9: Global SEM effect summaries Contains global weighted summaries of direct, indirect, and total SEM effects for MD, HD, and AD pathways affecting TWS deficits. Figure 10: Spatial effects of meteorological drought on TWS Contains spatial estimates of the total and indirect effects of meteorological drought on TWS deficits, including regional distribution statistics. Recommended citation If using this dataset, please cite the associated Zenodo record and the corresponding manuscript: Guo, Y., Wei, W., Wang, X., Song, Y., Guo, Z., He, L., Wang, S., Liu, L., Zhou, L., Sertel, E., & Wang, Y. Meteorological drought dominates future drought-related disturbances in terrestrial water storage. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20115678 License This dataset is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise specified in individual files. Contact For questions about the dataset, please contact: Wei Wei: weiwei@nwnu.edu.cnXufeng Wang: wangxufeng@lzb.ac.cn