Understanding the interacting factors that produce droughts and their impacts is crucial to preparing for their risks and managing them when they occur. This session focuses on work that improves our understanding of droughts’ complex interactions and cascading physical effects, through the analysis of paleoclimatic or instrumental records or through Earth System Model simulations. In particular, we invite work that aims to improve our understanding of the role of non-linear feedback processes that alter drought severity and physical impacts such as land-atmosphere coupling, snowpack, water availability, heatwaves and wildfire. We welcome contributions that speak to such issues specifically or improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind droughts, their severity, or their impacts more generally.