Compounding risks from droughts and hot extremes across different regions due to energy linkages

Droughts can affect a variety of sectors, such as water resources, agricultural yield, and energy security. Moreover, their impacts can cascade or propagate to other regions due to the physical or socioeconomic linkages. Though drought impacts on energy (e.g., hydropower generation) have been well explored, their effects, in tandem with other extremes, such as heatwaves (or compound droughts and hot extremes), across different regions have been less explored. In this study, we demonstrated the compounding risk of droughts in Southwest China and hot extremes in East China (with hydropower transmission from Southwest China), which collectively presents challenges to energy security in East China. We then explore the changes in the characteristics of such spatial compounding of droughts and hot extremes across different regions in historical periods. Finally, future risks of such extremes are also explored based on simulations from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). This study can be useful for understanding compounding risks with impacts transmitted to remote locations through physical or socio-economical pathways.