A new paper by Dr. Guiling Wang and Ph.D. researcher Koushan Mohammadi has been selected as a cover story in the September 2025 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). The feature includes a two-page research highlight summarizing their article, “Impact Matters: Detection and Early Warning of Agriculturally Impactful Flash Droughts,” followed by an in-depth interview with both authors.
The study tackles a long-standing challenge in drought science: existing flash-drought definitions are typically based on long-term climate statistics rather than agricultural impact. This limits their usefulness for farmers, water managers, and local stakeholders. Wang and Mohammadi introduce an impact-centric approach that defines flash droughts using the Soil Water Deficit Index (SWDI), an instantaneous metric of plant water availability. Unlike standardized indices, SWDI identifies when soil moisture falls below crop-specific stress thresholds, making it directly relevant to agricultural outcomes.
In the accompanying Metadata interview, Dr. Wang and Mohammadi discuss the broader relevance of this work, including its potential to reduce false alarms, improve operational drought monitoring, and strengthen communication with stakeholders. They describe the challenges of synthesizing multiple datasets with different spatial and temporal resolutions, and reflect on the surprising similarity between SIF-derived plant stress and SWDI-derived soil moisture changes.
Dr. Wang notes: “Our new approach aims to make flash drought detection and prediction more useful and usable for local stakeholders.”
Congratulations to Dr. Wang, Koushan Mohammadi, and the entire hydroclimatology group on this significant recognition!
Learn more about the lab here: hydroclimatology.uconn.edu
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