Global-scale meteorological-to-groundwater drought propagation and the drivers and patterns of multi-year groundwater drought

Salwey, Saskia; Hauswirth, Sandra; Ruijsch, Denise; van Jaarsveld, Barry; van Mourik, Jonna; Wanders, Niko

doi:10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Research article

|

03 Nov 2026

Research article |

| 03 Nov 2026

Global-scale meteorological-to-groundwater drought propagation and the drivers and patterns of multi-year groundwater drought

Saskia Salwey, Sandra Hauswirth, Denise Ruijsch, Barry van Jaarsveld, Jonna van Mourik, and Niko Wanders

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1609-2026-supplement

Data sets

GLOBGM_CMIP6: A Global Hyper-Resolution Groundwater Dataset for Assessing Historical and Future Groundwater Dynamics Under Climate and Socioeconomic Change - [globgm_historical_reference_gswp3-w5e5] B. van Jaarsveld https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-AKSHOX

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Short summary

This paper investigates how weather conditions influence droughts in groundwater. We focus on understanding why some groundwater droughts last for several years, since these long events can be difficult to manage and have particularly bad impacts. We find that some features of the groundwater system can worsen the effects of dry weather, making long groundwater droughts more likely. We categorize global groundwater data into three groups to describe how it is impacted by the weather.