Influence of snowpack on forest water stress in the Sierra Nevada

Higher global temperatures and intensification of extreme hydrologic events, such as droughts, can lead to premature tree mortality. In a Mediterranean climate like California, the seasonality of precipitation is out of sync with the peak growing season. Seasonal snowpack plays a critical role in reducing this mismatch between the timing of water input to the root zone and the peak forest water use. A loss of snowpack, or snow droughts, during warmer years, increases the asynchrony between water inputs and the peak of forest water use, intensifying water stress and tree mortality. Therefore, we hypothesize that the montane vegetation response to interannual climate variability in a Mediterranean climate is regulated by the snowpack. We tested this hypothesis using the 2012–2015 drought as a natural experiment. Regional Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) were used to infer and quantify the role of snowpack on forest water stress. The models simulate the Normalized Difference Infrared Index (NDII) as a proxy of forest water stress using water deficit (as seasonality index), location, slope, and aspect. The GAMs were trained using 75% of the data between 2001 and 2014. The remaining 25% of the data were used for validation. The model was able to simulate forest water stress for 2015 and 2016 across the northern, central, and southern Sierra Nevada with a range of R2 between 0.80 and 0.84. The simulated spatial patterns in forest water stress were consistent with those captured by the USDA Forest Service Aerial Detection Survey. Our findings suggest that the failure of a reduced snowpack in mitigating water deficit exacerbates forest water stress and tree mortality. Variations in water and surface energy budget across an elevational gradient play a critical role in modulating the vegetation response. These results provide insights into the importance of the Sierra Nevada snowpack under a warming climate. The models can aid forest managers to identify future forest water stress and tree die-off patterns.