Forest under stress: responses and recovery of water relations across scales during the compound drought in summer 2022

The summer of 2022 was characterized by compound soil and atmospheric drought (CSAD; low soil water content, SWC, and high vapor pressure deficit, VPD) in Central Europe, threatening forest carbon sequestration and water balance, yet linked ecosystem- and tree-level hydraulic responses remain poorly resolved. We assessed the response and recovery of water relations of a beech-dominated montane mixed deciduous forest in Switzerland (CH-Lae) to the 2022 CSAD through a series of ecosystem-scale (evapotranspiration, ET; canopy conductance, Gs) as well as tree-scale measurements, including leaf-level (leaf water potential, LWP; stomatal conductance, gs), stem-level (nighttime stem rehydration, NSR) and root-level (root water uptake depth, RWU depth) variables. During peak CSAD, ET and Gs declined by up to 50%, driven primarily by low SWC. Midday and predawn LWP declined significantly. Beech and maple accessed deeper water (> 70 cm), maintaining NSR and gs during CSAD and fully recovering thereafter; spruce and fir relied on shallow water (< 30 cm), showing stronger NSR reductions but still full recovery post-CSAD. Our findings demonstrate that species-specific hydraulic traits drive forest-scale water dynamics under CSAD conditions. Integrating these insights into forest adaptation strategies will be critical for sustaining forests under intensifying compound droughts in the future.