Drylands are highly sensitive to variations in water availability, including precipitation frequency, intensity, seasonality, and evapotranspiration, which profoundly affect ecosystems and human societies over multiple timescales. With the intensification of the global hydrological cycle, drylands are expected to experience significant environmental shifts, yet our understanding of their responses remains limited. This session invites contributions that integrate proxy-based reconstructions with numerical climate models and data assimilation techniques to investigate dryland climate–landscape dynamics from Quaternary to Anthropocene. We welcome studies employing quantitative multi-proxy datasets, novel proxies for sediment-routing (e.g. trapped charge methods) and quantitative palaeotemperature reconstructions (e.g. biomarkers), and cross-disciplinary proxy-model comparisons as well as innovative approaches incorporating remote sensing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.