Wood Anatomy-based Hydroclimatic Reconstruction for Enhancing Understanding of Climate Variability in the MENA Region

Swiss partners

• Institut fédéral de recherches sur la forêt, la neige et le paysage WSL: Patrick Fonti (main applicant)

Partners in the MENA region

• Université de Gabès, Tunisie: Mustapha Gorai (main applicant)

• Institut national de recherche forestière, Algérie: Mourad Arabi

• Ecole Nationale Forestière d'Ingénieurs, Salé, Maroc: Mohamed Sabir

Presentation of the projet

The project's main aim is to develop century-long chronologies of conifer wood cell anatomical traits within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the intention of linking these traits to drought events documented by instrumental data. MENA, being a climate change hotspot with rapid and projected climate changes, raises concerns about water resources' vulnerability to climate change. In this context, historical long-term perspectives are crucial, as they provide insights into natural climate variability and contribute to climate model parametrization, enhancing predictions. The project seeks to address uncertainties in drought variability records by using innovative methods like quantitative wood anatomy (QWA) and investigating individual tracheid cell dimensions for hydroclimatic reconstruction. By delving deeper into wood anatomy and exploring how cell characteristics correlate with drought events, the project aims to offer a more mechanistic understanding of intra-ring proxy-related drought signatures.

To achieve these goals, the project will gather tree-ring samples from conifer trees at key MENA locations. Utilizing fully- and semi-automatic processing of high-resolution imagery, the team will delve into the microscopic aspects of xylem trait features to link cell anatomical characteristics with environmental signals. The QWA approach will allow the creation of continuous century-long chronologies, with a minimum of ten trees sampled per chronology. By applying this approach, the project aims to produce new insights into the relationships between cell traits and drought events, enhancing the understanding of the impacts of water availability on cell formation processes, growth, and wall thickness. The constructed chronologies will be standardized and detrended, and their correlation with drought data will be explored, utilizing Pearson correlations and drought indices. The anticipated outcomes include more accurate historical climate variability records for the MENA region, which can offer valuable insights for climate modeling, risk assessment, and adaptation strategies in this vulnerable region.