# What are catastrophic shifts?

Arid ecosystems respond discontinuously to continuously increasing pressure. This is due to positive feed-back mechanisms that amplify the drivers of vegetation loss after a critical threshold is reached.

## Pressures

The pressures in the ecosystems investigated by CASCADE are climate change and drought events, fire frequency and livestock grazing.

## Responses

CASCADE investigates how the vegetation cover and composition of plant functional groups and species, as well as the state of the soils depend on the level pressure.

## Predicting Transitions


## Implications on Management