In an increasingly globalized and warming world, drought can have devastating impacts on regional agriculture, water resources, and the ecological environment. Reliable prediction of future drought changes is especially important within the context of rapid warming. However, the extent and future trends of drought changes are variable and incomplete in the CMIP6 forcing scenarios. Based on the CMIP6 data, we chose the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index to predict future global drought. The results show that when emissions increase under the three shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios (SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585), the global climate environment becomes drier and drought grow more severe and longer-lasting. Regions already classified as arid will suffer even more severe drought under high-emission SSPs. Specifically, 36.2% of global land will experience increased drought under SSP126, including 67.0% of regions designated as arid, with droughts intensifying significantly. Under SSP585, 68.3% of global land will suffer increased drought, with 93.2% of the arid regions experiencing significant drought intensification. Furthermore, the global duration of drought is estimated to be 4.4 months, 5.7 months, and 8.6 months for the time periods 1960-2000, 2021-2060, and 2061-2100, respectively. Notably, for the SSP585 scenario, regions that are already arid may become universally drought-stricken by the late 21st century. The most severe aridification trends may occur in the arid regions of Australia, Middle East, South Africa, Amazon basin, North Africa, Europe, and Central Asia. Additionally, Europe and the Amazon River Basin are also facing the threat of future drought. Increased aridification will put these regions and countries at risk of further land and ecological degradation, as well as increased poverty. The results of this study have far-ranging implications not only for how we deal with the impacts of climate warming-induced drought disaster, but also for how these impacts affect socioeconomic and ecological security.

Studying the relationship between agricultural irrigation water requirements (IWR) and water supply is significant for optimizing the sustainable management of water resources in Tarim River Basin (TRB). However, the related studies have not quantified the total IWR and the imbalance of irrigation water supply and requirements in the TRB. The study analyzed the spatial-temporal variations of IWR by a modified Penman–Monteith (PM) method during 1990–2015. Five major crops—rice, wheat, maize, cotton, and fruit trees—are chosen for calculating the IWR. It was found that the IWR increased significantly, from 193.14 × 10⁸ m³ in 1990 to 471.89 × 10⁸ m³ in 2015, for a total increase of 278.74 × 10⁸ m³. For the first period (1990–2002), the total IWR remained stable at 200 × 10⁸ m³ but started to increase from 2003 onwards. Significantly more irrigation water was consumed in the oasis regions of the Tienshan Mountains (southern slope) and the Yarkand River (plains). Furthermore, there was an intensified conflict between IWR and water supply in the major sub-basins. The ratios of IWR to river discharge (IWR/Q) for the Weigan-Kuqa River Basin (WKRB), Aksu River Basin (ARB), Kaxgar River Basin (KGRB), and Yarkand River Basin (YRB) were 0.93, 0.68, 1.05, and 0.79, respectively. The IWR/Q experienced serious annual imbalances, as high flows occurred in July and August, whereas critical high IWR occurred in May and June. Seasonal water shortages further aggravate the water stress in the arid region.

Vegetation dynamics, as fundamental terrestrial ecosystem components, regulate precipitation and evapotranspiration, directly affecting soil moisture (SM). However, global greening’s impact on SM (drying or wetting) remains uncertain. Here, we integrate multi-source satellite observations, reanalysis data, and outputs from 12 Earth System Models (ESMs) resampled to a unified resolution (0.25°) to quantify historical vegetation-SM couplings (1982–2020) and assess their future persistence (2015–2100). Results show 49.96% and 38.19% of global vegetated areas exhibit greening-drying patterns, driven primarily by vegetation transpiration, especially in grasslands and cultivated land (42-82% sensitivity). The ESMs predicted that soil dryness is exacerbated by vegetation greening and is expected to continue in the future. Despite uncertainties arising from discrepancies in model parameterizations in ESMs and the limited representation of regional-scale feedback across SM datasets, our study provides a robust and comprehensive assessment of the widespread impacts of global vegetation greening on soil drought. The findings highlight that SM carrying capacity must be prioritized in ecological restoration strategies—particularly in vulnerable semi-arid regions where greening intensifies soil drying (e.g., Central Asia, Central Africa, and southern Australia). Our results provide critical references for guiding sustainable ecological restoration and rational cropland expansion.

Land use/cover change has become an indispensable part of global eco-environmental change research. The Tarim River Basin is the largest inland river basin in China. It is also one of the most ecologically fragile areas in the country, with greening and desertification processes coexisting. This paper analyzes the evolution of land-use/cover change in the Tarim River Basin over the past 30 years based on remote sensing data. The research also explores the contribution of conversion between different land types to the ecological environment by selecting methods, such as transfer matrix and ecological contribution rate. Results indicate that grassland and barren land are the main land types in the region, accounting for 72.46% and 18.87% of the basin area, respectively. From 1990 to 2019, cropland area increased from 33,585.89 km² to 52,436.40 km², an increase of 56.13%, while barren land areas decreased from 781,380.57 km² to 760,783.29 km². Most of the land-use conversion was grassland to other land types and other land types to barren land. Since 1990, the conversion of barren land to grassland and cropland in the basin has led to ecological improvement, whereas the conversion of grassland to cropland has caused deterioration, but with a generally improving trend. It is anticipated that, over the next decade, changes in land types will involve increases in grassland and woodland area, decreases in barren land and cropland, and an overall improvement in the ecological environment in the watershed. Since agriculture and animal husbandry are the main industries in the Tarim River Basin and the land-use structure is dominated by cropland and grassland, several key measures should be implemented. These include improving land use, rationalizing the use of water and soil resources, slowing down the expansion of cropland, and alleviating the contradiction between humans and land, with the ultimate aim of achieving sustainable development of the social economy and ecological environment.

The growing water crisis in Central Asia (CA) and the complex water politics over the region's transboundary rivers have attracted considerable attention; however, they are yet to be studied in depth. Here, we used the Gini coefficient, water political events, and social network analysis to assess the matching degree between water and socio-economic elements and analyze the dynamics of water politics in the transboundary river basins of CA. Results indicate that the mismatch between water and land resources is a precondition for conflict, with the average Gini coefficient between water and population, gross domestic product (GDP), and cropland measuring 0.19 (highly matched), 0.47 (relatively mismatched), and 0.61 (highly mismatched), respectively. Moreover, the Gini coefficient between water and cropland increased by 0.07 from 1997 to 2016, indicating an increasing mismatch. In general, a total of 591 water political events occurred in CA, with cooperation accounting for 89 % of all events. Water events have increased slightly over the past 70 years and shown three distinct stages, namely a stable period (1951–1991), a rapid increase and decline period (1991–2001), and a second stable period (2001–2018). Overall, water conflicts mainly occurred in summer and winter. Among the region's transboundary river basins, the Aral Sea basin experienced the strongest conflicts due to the competitive utilization of the Syr and Amu Darya rivers. Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the density of water conflictive and cooperative networks in CA increased by 0.18 and 0.36, respectively. Uzbekistan has the highest degree centrality in the conflictive network (6), while Kazakhstan has the highest degree centrality in the cooperative network (15), indicating that these two countries are the most interconnected with other countries. Our findings suggest that improving the water and land allocation systems and strengthening the water cooperative networks among countries will contribute to the elimination of conflicts and promotion of cooperation in CA.