Studying the applicability of different remote sensing drought monitoring methods in Shanxi Province in the eastern Loess Plateau is of great significance for improving the level of agrometeorological services and disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities in complex terrain areas. In this paper, the terrain and weather parameters in the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) were modified by localization using the Fengyun meteorological satellite data and the meteorological station observation data. A comparative analysis was conducted on the performance of three remote sensing drought indexes, the Vegetation Supply Water Index (VSWI), Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) and CWSI in Shanxi Province before and after the rainfall process from May 6 to 12, 2022 and throughout the whole crop growth season. The results showed that CWSI, TVDI and VSWI all showed the same trend as the measured soil moisture before and after a rainfall process. However, when the drought was severe, TVDI and VSWI were easy to underestimated the drought level, otherwise, they were easy to overestimate the drought level, while CWSI was close to the measured soil moisture and could reflect the influence of rainfall on soil moisture in real time. During the whole crop growth season, CWSI showed consistent with the measured soil moisture. TVDI was only close to the measured soil moisture in spring, and the effect was poor in summer and autumn with better vegetation coverage. VSWI was not suitable for drought monitoring in complex terrain areas. In addition, the early cumulative remote sensing drought monitoring results are closer to the surface shallow soil moisture than the monitoring results on the same day. In conclusion, the modified CWSI can effectively reflect the remote sensing drought situation in Shanxi Province, and provides a new attempt for remote sensing drought monitoring in complex areas of the eastern Loess Plateau.

Sandstorm is a serious natural disaster in north China. It is of great significance to carry out relevant research to improve the forecast level of this kind of catastrophic weather. Based on the RegCM-dust model, an extended period numerical prediction analysis of a typical severe sandstorm process in north China is conducted, and the results are compared with NCEP reanalysis data and other analysis results. The results show that the regions with high sediment discharge simulated by the model are mainly located in southern Xinjiang, Mongolia and western Inner Mongolia. The model has a certain forecasting ability for 10 m wind speed, but the simulated wind speed is smaller than the reanalysis data. The changes of dust column content and total sedimentation simulated by the model can reflect the characteristics of the dust storm weather process. The simulated sand-dust mixing ratio has a certain correspondence with the urban pollution index, which indicates that the model has certain forecasting ability for the pollution weather caused by sand-dust.

Drought is one of the natural disasters with the widest global impact. The anomalous drought and heatwave event that occurred in the Yangtze River Basin in summer of 2022 is not only of high intensity but also of long duration, it is a rare and significant drought event leading to very serious socioeconomic impacts in China. In view of the extreme nature of this event, this paper reveals the possible influence of atmospheric circulation and external forcing anomalies on this drought event based on an objective analysis of the evolutionary characteristics of this event. It is found that the meteorological drought index and soil moisture monitoring results consistently indicate that this drought event started to appear in June, developed rapidly in July, and further expanded and intensified in both extent and intensity in August. At the same time, the overall temperature in the basin was high, with the number of high temperature days exceeding 40 days in some areas. In addition, anomaly of evapotranspiration over the basin in summer was the second highest on record since 1960, second only to the high temperature drought event in 2013, which further exacerbated the degree of water deficit in the Yangtze River Basin. From the perspective of circulation characteristics, the abnormal intensifying and westward extension of the western Pacific subtropical high pressure, the small area and weak strength of the polar vortex and the intensifying and eastward shift of the South Asian high pressure in summer jointly led to weak water vapor transport conditions and prevailing sinking air currents in the Yangtze River Basin, making the overall conditions unfavorable for the occurrence of precipitation. The persistence of the La Niña event, the appearance of negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the persistence of the negative snow cover anomaly in the northwestern Tibet Plateau in spring may be the main external forcing factors leading to the circulation anomaly in this summer.

Based on GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite products, the TWS changes were calculated in drylands of northern China during the past two decades. And on this basis, the characteristics and causes of TWS changes were explored by using multi-source observations and model simulations. The results show that TWS in drylands of northern China decreased with a rate of 17.80±1.72 Gt per year during 2002-2020, which was also accompanied by various degrees of reduction in groundwater, root zone soil moisture and surface soil moisture. In drylands of northern China, the effects, such as climate warming and human water consumption, caused a substantial increase of evapotranspiration. The negative contributions of evapotranspiration overpassed the concurrently positive contributions of precipitation, and thus led to the decrease in TWS and increase in regional water stress.

The difference of land-atmosphere energy flux caused by the heterogeneity of underlying surface properties plays an important role in affecting the occurrence of local heavy precipitation. The transition of vegetation is fast in western part of the transition zone of China’s summer monsoon, the nature of vegetation is obviously different, and the surface heterogeneity is strong, so the extreme precipitation is prone to occurrence. In order to explore the influence of underlying surface heterogeneity on strong precipitation in this area, the characteristics of underlying surface were analyzed statistically. And on this basis the sensitivity tests with three or six kinds of landuse type and control test for a typical heavy rainfall process under the influence of the western Pacific subtropical high and cold air from 28 to 29 August 2017 were carried out by using the mesoscale model of WRF3.8 and NCAR-LSM land surface model. The influences of underlying surface change on rainstorm intensity, falling area and flux parameters were studied. The results show that the underlying surface with three to six kinds distributed in transition region of summer monsoon of China. The types of underlying surface were relatively few in eastern part of Qinghai to central Gansu, the heterogeneity was weak, while there were more than six kinds in southeastern part of Northwest China and northern Sichuan, the heterogeneity was strong. The proportion of representative vegetation in a single grid in the model was not high, and the contribution rate to land-atmosphere flux was less than 50%, which indicated that it was not suitable to consider the single underlying surface in calculating land-to-air flux during the heavy rain process. The area of precipitation with different magnitudes was closer to the actual situation with the increase of underlying surface types in the model, and the heterogeneity of land feature physical quantity strengthened in main rain zones. Compared with the control test, the simulated shallow surface temperature, surface heat flux, sensible heat flux and latent heat flux by two sensitivity tests reduced during the daytime, which shrank the bias to some extent, thus decreased convective available potential energy and restrained the occurrence of convective rainfall, further reduced the positive bias of precipitation.

Considering the different disaster-pregnant environment, population density and economic condition, the drought disaster chain models in southwest and south China were constructed respectively by using history data and record of references. Here, the disaster-pregnant environment includes climate background, underlying surface, landforms, soil and river network. And on this basis that the transmission characteristics of disaster on separate disaster chains were analyzed. The results show that the drought disaster chain structure is similar in southwest and south China, but their transfer process of disaster on the two chain is different. There are obvious regional characteristics of disaster transfer on their chain. The incipient drought can cause crop drought in southwest China, while moderate drought can cause crop drought in south China. In southwest China, the moderate drought can lead to some problems such as people and livestock drinking water difficult and livestock forage shortage, but these corresponding problems can be generated by the severe drought in south China. Being the difference in disaster-pregnant environment, the rock desertification phenomenon appears in southwest China under the severe drought condition, but the probability of rock desertification is small in south China except for north Guangxi. In the same region, as far as the various disaster-affected bodies are concerned, the threshold of drought degree transmitting is different. For example, shipping problems usually result from the moderate drought, and forest fire and pest disaster are often led by the severe drought, while soil degradations appear in the extreme drought.