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District-level assessment of the ecohydrological resilience to hydroclimatic disturbances and its controlling factors in India

The carbon and water cycles play an important role in ecosystem functioning and are linked to each other through different physical and biological processes. The hydroclimatic disturbances such as droughts affect both hydrological as well as the ecological processes. Increasing hydroclimatic disturbances under climate change will adversely affect the ecohydrological processes and hence, the assessment of the ecohydrological resilience and its controlling factors is important for the sustainability of the ecosystems. In this study, an assessment of the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems in India to hydroclimatic disturbances was carried out at the district (i.e. administrative division) scale. Ecosystem water use efficiency (WUEe), defined as the ratio of net primary productivity (NPP) to evapotranspiration, was used as an indicator of ecosystem functioning or its response to hydroclimatic disturbances.

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