{
  "abstract": "Groundwater stores a third of all global freshwater and supports water supply, irrigation and ecosystems across the world. As such, groundwater drought can have wide-reaching financial, social and environmental impacts, particularly when drought events are prolonged or multi-year. Although recent work has made significant progress in understanding the drivers and patterns of multi-year meteorological droughts, we do not know how this signal translates into multi-year groundwater drought, where subsurface processes, anthropogenic influences and abstractions can alter the meteorological signal. This is particularly true at the global-scale, where a major barrier to understanding large-scale groundwater drought dynamics is the difficulty of obtaining consistent and comprehensive groundwater data. In this research, we use a new global hyper-resolution (∼1 km) groundwater dataset to investigate the global patterns and drivers of groundwater drought from 1960–2019, with a specific focus on multi-year events. We start by characterizing the propagation of meteorological (represented by SPEI-12) to groundwater drought, evaluating how and to what extent the sub-surface plays a role in modulating the meteorological drought signal. Subsequently, we define three global groundwater response types that provide a framework for understanding the processes and geo-physical drivers of normal versus multi-year groundwater droughts. We find that 35 % of global groundwater grid cells have an average groundwater drought duration which is multi-year. In 83 % of these locations, the subsurface extends the meteorological drought signal, whereas in the remaining 17 %, groundwater drought duration appears to be primarily driven by meteorological anomalies. Our analysis offers new insights into global-scale drought exposure by identifying regions which have been most vulnerable to multi-year groundwater drought in the past, as well as those which might be more vulnerable in the future. Importantly, our typology also highlights areas where multi-year groundwater droughts can be anticipated based on meteorological drought anomalies and can therefore inform strategies for managing and mitigating future water scarcity risks.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Utrecht University (Utrecht, Netherlands)"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Saskia Salwey",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2100-3142"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sandra Hauswirth",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-9208-1757"
    },
    {
      "name": "Denise Ruijsch",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-9470-2723"
    },
    {
      "name": "Barry van Jaarsveld",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5154-5922"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jonna van Mourik",
      "orcid": "0009-0006-3733-6407"
    },
    {
      "name": "Niko Wanders",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7102-5454"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0bwy72n649e8c.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "0bwy72n649e8c",
  "issns": [
    "2190-4987"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/17/1609/2026/",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-03",
  "publisher": "Copernicus GmbH",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0bwy72n649e8c.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T00:27:55Z",
      "native_id": "10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/17/1609/2026/"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "issn:2190-4987",
      "subfield": "climate"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Global-scale meteorological-to-groundwater drought propagation and the drivers and patterns of multi-year groundwater drought",
  "title_text": "Global-scale meteorological-to-groundwater drought propagation and the drivers and patterns of multi-year groundwater drought",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-05T00:21:16Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0bwy72n649e8c",
  "venue": "Earth System Dynamics",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.5194/egusphere-2026-2335",
      "pid": null,
      "relation": "preprint",
      "title": null,
      "venue": null
    }
  ]
}