Uncovering shifts in dryland vegetation dynamics using satellites

About the talk

Changes in dryland ecosystems can take place gradually or abruptly. When the latter are accompanied by a regime shift to an alternate vegetation state, maintained by reinforcing feedbacks, they are hard to reverse. This makes detecting, characterizing, and predicting abrupt shifts important for drylands conservation and restoration. In this presentation, Paulo’s aim is to show the results of his past work on better understanding abrupt shifts in global drylands ecosystem functioning, by detecting, assessing potential drivers, and trying to predict them years before they occur.