[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Multilayer soil moisture depletion intensifies drought impacts on global ecosystems

Gu et al., 2026, Nature Geoscience — Hydrology

Patterns: [Systems](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/systems), [Relationships](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/relationships), [Perspectives](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/perspectives)

## In short

Soil is treated as a layered system whose parts (individual depth layers) combine to buffer drought, and the vantage point used to measure it (single profile-average versus per-layer) changes what the drought looks like and what it predicts.

## What they found (results)

Analyzing 1981–2020 global soil moisture, vertically compound (all-layer) droughts have grown longer and more frequent across over half of global land, and diagnosing drought from profile-average soil moisture overestimates compound-drought duration by about 128.3% while underestimating ecosystem productivity losses by about 27.8% relative to multilayer diagnosis.

These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.

[Source](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-026-02083-1)