Abstract Surface water availability (WA), defined as precipitation minus evapotranspiration, is affected by changes in vegetation structure. These biophysical impacts can alter the distribution of WA, shifting both its average and extreme values, while the divergence is not yet quantified. Using long‐term remote sensing observations, our analysis reveals that increases in leaf area index (LAI) lead to a widespread decline in average WA, with a global reduction of −2.11 mm/month m2 m−2. Additionally, we show that in humid regions, extreme WA—represented by the 15th and 85th percentiles of WA from 2001 to 2020—exhibits stronger sensitivity to LAI variations than average WA. Overall, the fraction of variance in low WA explained by greening is minimal (−2.7%), followed by average WA (6.8%), while high WA exhibits the largest fraction (−23.6%).

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