Addressing the water conflict between agriculture and ecosystems under environmental flow regulation: An integrated modeling study

Zheng, Yi; Tian, Yong; Du, Erhu; Feng, Han‐Zhong; Wu, Yong Bo; Zheng, Chunmiao; Li, Xiaoqiong

doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2020.104874

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Second, addressing the conflict between aquifer conservation in the midstream area and ecological water demand in the downstream area has become a management challenge in the HRB (Yao et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2020). We find that our proposed modeling framework, by adopting distributed policies to adjust the conjunctive use of SW and GW over time and across space, can provide more flexible solutions to address the conflict between the upstream and downstream areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sun et al., 2018), (c) an improved soil module to simulate the detailed spatial coverage of irrigation in multiple soil layers (Han et al., 2021), and (d) a graphical modeling platform to incorporate adaptive land use inputs (Tian et al., 2018). Due to these advances, HEIFLOW has been successfully applied to manage conjunctive SW and GW water resources in large river basins with the objective of addressing water demand conflicts between agriculture and ecosystems (Zheng et al., 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating Distributed Policies for Conjunctive Surface Water‐Groundwater Management in Large River Basins: Water Uses Versus Hydrological Impacts

Tian

Cai

et al. 2022

Water Resources Research

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It is imperative to understand the interconnectedness of water use and hydrological impacts for water policy design underlying varying hydrological conditions across space and over time. However, such analysis remains difficult, constrained by the lack of appropriate modeling tools that fully integrate water policies, water use, and hydrological processes with high spatiotemporal resolutions. To address this challenge, this study proposes a distributed policy design scheme featuring spatially variable and temporally dynamic policies for conjunctive surface water‐groundwater management in large river basins. A fully integrated modeling framework is developed to tightly couple (a) an agent‐based model for farmers' water use under distributed water policies and (b) a physically based hydrological model for surface water‐groundwater processes. The modeling framework is applied to the Heihe River Basin to assess water use and hydrological impacts under distributed water policies. By using the distributed policy scheme to adjust a water policy (e.g., groundwater tax) across space and over time, we found that hydrological outcomes can be improved without adversely reducing agricultural water supply. For example, by shifting the implementation of a high groundwater tax from dry to wet years, a rise of the water table by 0.28 m (0.03–0.95 m across different irrigation districts) can be achieved while the total water supply is maintained at a similar level. Furthermore, hydrological externality effects among nearby districts can be explicitly identified and quantified based on assessments of spatially varying water policies. This study highlights the need for water policy design to consider spatiotemporal variations in the physical hydrological system.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Distributed Policies for Conjunctive Surface Water‐Groundwater Management in Large River Basins: Water Uses Versus Hydrological Impacts

Tian

Cai

et al. 2022

Water Resources Research

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“…This study used the most recent version of HEIFLOW (Zheng et al., 2020), which has added modules for representing water management policies (e.g., environmental flow regulation and groundwater pumping restriction) and internally simulating high‐resolution irrigation activities. This version of HEIFLOW has two options for emulating irrigation activities, namely, scheduled and automatic irrigation methods, which differ in the calculation of irrigation water demand.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The automatic irrigation method is particularly suitable for modeling future climate scenarios in which historical farming experience may not be an adequate reference. More technical details about HEIFLOW can be found in the literature (Tian et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving the Scientific Understanding of the Paradox of Irrigation Efficiency: An Integrated Modeling Approach to Assessing Basin‐Scale Irrigation Efficiency

Xiong

Zheng

Feng

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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Global food demand is constantly increasing with population growth and is predicted to be nearly twice as high in 2050 as in 2005(Tilman et al., 2011. Agriculture is the largest consumer of fresh water, accounting for approximately 75% of water use by humans (Wallace, 2000). However, approximately 4 billion people and 76% of global croplands are facing severe water scarcity at least 1 month of the year (Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2016;Rosa et al., 2020). In vast inland arid regions, irrigated agricultural systems also compete intensely with vulnerable ecosystems for limited water resources (Sun et al., 2018). The regression of the Aral Sea, a well-known ecological tragedy, is largely attributed to the irrigation-intensive industries in the former Soviet Republics (Varis, 2014). Therefore, an irrigation system with high water-use efficiency is vital for the sustainability of such areas.However, the paradox of irrigation efficiency (IE) has long been recognized; that is, higher efficiency rarely reduces irrigation water consumption (Burt et al., 1997;Scott et al., 2014). A recent perspective paper in Science (Grafton et al., 2018) revisited the paradox and summarized two major causes of this phenomenon. First, non-consumed water "losses" at the farm scale (e.g., the runoff return to rivers and groundwater recharge by irrigation water) are often recovered and reused at the basin scale. Second, advanced irrigation technologies subsidized by governments may encourage the expansion of irrigated areas. This previous paper further highlights the need to develop detailed water accounts from the farm scale to the basin scale to support decision-making in the public interest. While the paper conceptualizes the desired accounting for

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A review of integrated surface-subsurface numerical hydrological models

Shu,

Chen,

Meng

et al. 2024

Sci. China Earth Sci.

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Addressing the water conflict between agriculture and ecosystems under environmental flow regulation: An integrated modeling study

Cited by 17 publications

References 54 publications

Evaluating Distributed Policies for Conjunctive Surface Water‐Groundwater Management in Large River Basins: Water Uses Versus Hydrological Impacts

Evaluating Distributed Policies for Conjunctive Surface Water‐Groundwater Management in Large River Basins: Water Uses Versus Hydrological Impacts

Improving the Scientific Understanding of the Paradox of Irrigation Efficiency: An Integrated Modeling Approach to Assessing Basin‐Scale Irrigation Efficiency

A review of integrated surface-subsurface numerical hydrological models

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