California's food-energy-water system: An open source simulation model of adaptive surface and groundwater management in the Central Valley

Abstract

This study introduces the California Food-Energy-Water System (CALFEWS) simulation model to describe the integrated, multi-sector dynamics that emerge from the coordinated management of surface and groundwater supplies throughout California's Central Valley. The CALFEWS simulation framework links the operation of state-wide, interbasin transfer projects (i.e., State Water Project, Central Valley Project) with coordinated water management strategies abstracted to the scale of irrigation/water districts.This study contributes a historic baseline (October 1996 -September 2016) evaluation of the model's performance against observations, including reservoir storage, inter-basin transfers, environmental endpoints, and groundwater banking accounts. State-aware, rules-based representations of critical component systems enable CALFEWS to simulate adaptive management responses to alternative climate, infrastructure, and regulatory scenarios. Moreover, CALFEWS has been designed to maintain interoperability with electric power dispatch and agricultural production models. As such, CALFEWS provides a platform to evaluate internally consistent scenarios for the integrated management of water supply, energy generation, and food production.

Bias Correction of Hydrologic Projections Strongly Impacts Inferred Climate Vulnerabilities in Institutionally Complex Water Systems

“…In this study, we explore how errors in dynamically downscaled projections of surface hydrology impact important California water management systems using CALFEWS (Zeff et al 2021). The model adaptively allocates water across scales and sectors using a detailed representation of the state's infrastructure and institutions.…”

“…To that effect, we first introduce the regional atmospheric land-surface model (WRF-Noah-MP) that generated our dynamically downscaled streamflow data sets. We then summarize the water management model used in this study (CALFEWS) (Zeff et al 2021). Finally, we then describe the methods used here to produce our bias-corrected data sets.…”

“…In this study, we show how errors from a well-established coupled atmosphere-land modeling system [weather research and forecasting model using the Noah-multi-parameterization land surface model (WRF-Noah-MP)] (Cai et al 2014;Skamarock et al 2005Skamarock et al , 2008 (Figs. S1 and S2) propagate into a California-specific WMM [i.e., California Food-Energy-Water Systems Model (CAL-FEWS)] (Zeff et al 2021) and impact the simulation of systemwide water supply, groundwater extraction, and annual revenue of irrigation districts in the Central Valley.…”

Global Sensitivity Analysis of a Coupled Hydro-Economic Model and Groundwater Restriction Assessment

“…Surface water delivery (VSW), groundwater pumping (VGW) and groundwater recharge (VIR) amounts were obtained from simulations of the California Food-Energy-Water Systems (CALFEWS) model (Zeff et al, 2021) for historical conditions. Groundwater pumping was calculated by subtracting the total water demand from surface water deliveries shown in Figure S2 (Supplementary 3).…”

“…Figure S2: Historical cropland use (KCDAMS) and water use (Zeff et al, 2021) for Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa, from 1998 to 2015.…”