We apply a research approach that can inform riparian restoration planning by developing products that show recent trends in vegetation conditions identifying areas potentially more at risk for degradation and the associated relationship between riparian vegetation dynamics and climate conditions. The full suite of data products and a link to the associated publication addressing this analysis can be found on the Parent data release. To characterize the climate conditions across the study period, we use the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The SPEI is a water balance index which includes both precipitation and evapotranspiration in its calculation. Conditions from the prior n months, generally ranging from 1 to 60, are compared to the same respective period over the prior years to identify the index value (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2010). Values generally range from -3 to 3, where values less than 0 suggest drought conditions while values greater than 0 suggest wetter than normal conditions. For this study, we are using the 12-month, or 1-year, SPEI to compare annual conditions within the larger Upper Gila River watershed.
The SPEI data was extracted into a CSV spreadsheet using data from the Gridded Surface Meteorological (GRIDMET) dataset, which provides a spatially explicit SPEI product in Google Earth Engine (GEE) at a 5-day interval and a spatial resolution of 4-km (Abatzoglou, 2013). In GEE, we quantify overall mean values of SPEI across each 5-day period for the watershed from January 1980 to December 2021. Using R software, we reduced the 5-day values to represent monthly mean values and constrained the analysis to water year 1980 (i.e., October 1980) through water year 2021 (i.e., October 2021). Using the monthly timeseries, we completed the breakpoint analysis in R to identify breaks within the SPEI time series. The algorithm identifies a seasonal pattern within the timeseries. When the seasonal pattern deviates, a breakpoint is then detected. These breaks can be used to pinpoint unique climate periods in the time series.
This is a Child Item for the Parent data release, Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present - Database of Trends in Vegetation Properties and Climate Adaptation Variables. The spreadsheet attached to this Child Item consists of 5 columns, including the (i) month from January 1985 through October 2021, (ii) the 1-year SPEI monthly time series, (iii) the dates identified as breaks within the breakpoint algorithm, (iv) the breakpoint trend identified within the breakpoint algorithm, and (v) the dates that were used as the climate period breaks in this study. The climate periods identified in this spreadsheet using the SPEI data were used as the climate periods in our riparian study.
