Estimating the human contribution to groundwater depletion in the Middle East, from GRACE data, land surface models, and well observations

Joodaki, Gholamreza; Wahr, John; Swenson, Sean

doi:10.1002/2013wr014633

Cited by 225 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…GRACE measurements have captured significant groundwater depletion in many aquifers or regions globally, including NWI (and neighboring eastern Punjab Province in Pakistan), HPA, and Central Valley in the USA, the NCP in China, the Middle East, and the southern MDB in Australia. Among those, the NWI and Middle East regions show the most significant and persistent groundwater depletion over the past decade, with rates as large as 20.4 ± 7.1 km 3 /year and 25 ± 3 km 3 /year, respectively, for the period 2003-2012 Joodaki et al 2014). The Central Valley is also losing a large amount of groundwater with estimated depletion rates range from 4.8 ± 0.4 to 7.7 ± 0.7 km 3 /year, depending on the time span of the studies, and GRACE estimates agree well with in situ well data Scanlon et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, GRACE measurements have indeed captured some interesting long-term regional groundwater changes over the world that can be verified by either in situ groundwater level data or analysis of precipitation data. GRACE-observed long-term regional groundwater changes include significant groundwater depletion in northwest and northern India (Rodell et al 2009;Tiwari et al 2009;Chen et al 2014), the Middle East Joodaki et al 2014), California's Central Valley Scanlon et al 2012a), and the southern MDB in Australia (Leblanc et al 2009Chen et al 2015a), and lower groundwater depletions in the NCP in China ) and HPA in the USA (Strassberg et al 2009;Scanlon et al 2012b;Famiglietti and Rodell 2013). (Geruo et al 2013).…”

Section: Groundwater Depletion From Gracementioning

confidence: 99%

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Groundwater Storage Changes: Present Status from GRACE Observations

et al. 2015

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Satellite gravity measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provide quantitative measurement of terrestrial water storage (TWS) changes with unprecedented accuracy. Combining GRACE-observed TWS changes and independent estimates of water change in soil and snow and surface reservoirs offers a means for estimating groundwater storage change. Since its launch in March 2002, GRACE time-variable gravity data have been successfully used to quantify long-term groundwater storage changes in different regions over the world, including northwest India, the High Plains Aquifer and the Central Valley in the USA, the North China Plain, Middle East, and southern Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, where groundwater storage has been significantly depleted in recent years (or decades). It is difficult to rely on in situ groundwater measurements for accurate quantification of large, regional-scale groundwater storage changes, especially at long timescales due to inadequate spatial and temporal coverage of in situ data and uncertainties in storage coefficients. The now nearly 13 years of GRACE gravity data provide a successful and unique complementary tool for monitoring and measuring groundwater changes on a global and regional basis. Despite the successful applications of GRACE in studying global groundwater storage change, there are still some major challenges limiting the application and interpretation of GRACE data. In this paper, we present an overview of GRACE applications in groundwater studies and discuss if and how the main challenges to using GRACE data can be addressed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Groundwater Depletion From Gracementioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater Storage Changes: Present Status from GRACE Observations

et al. 2015

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“…On the local scale, for the inter-annual and long-periodic change in the hydrologic cycle, what significantly affects loading is large anthropogenic disturbances on groundwater extraction and artificial reservoir water impoundment and other climate-driven factors, e.g. natural floods and droughts (Chao et al, 2008;Rodell et al, 2009;Feng et al, 2013;Joodaki et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2014a). The global-scale mass variations closely related to changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) are observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission, while the surface elastic displacement can be estimated if the load and rheological properties of the Earth were known (Farrell, 1972).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting seasonal and long-term vertical displacement in the North China Plain using GRACE and GPS

Wang

Chen

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In total, 29 continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) time series data together with data from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) are analysed to determine the seasonal displacements of surface loadings in the North China Plain (NCP). Results show significant seasonal variations and a strong correlation between GPS and GRACE results in the vertical displacement component; the average correlation and weighted root-meansquares (WRMS) reduction between GPS and GRACE are 75.6 and 28.9 % respectively, when atmospheric and nontidal ocean effects were removed, but the annual peak-topeak amplitude of GPS (1.2-6.3 mm) is greater than the data (1.0-2.2 mm) derived from GRACE. We also calculate the trend rate as well as the seasonal signal caused by the mass load change from GRACE data; the rate of GRACEderived terrestrial water storage (TWS) loss (after multiplying by the scaling factor) in the NCP was 3.39 cm yr −1 (equivalent to 12.42 km 3 yr −1 ) from 2003 to 2009. For a 10-year time span (2003 to 2012), the rate loss of TWS was 2.57 cm yr −1 (equivalent to 9.41 km 3 yr −1 ), which is consistent with the groundwater storage (GWS) depletion rate (the rate losses of GWS were 2.49 and 2.72 cm yr −1 during 2003-2009 and 2003-2012 respectively) estimated from GRACE-derived results after removing simulated soil moisture (SM) data from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS)/Noah model. We also found that GRACEderived GWS changes are in disagreement with the groundwater level changes from observations of shallow aquifers from 2003 to 2009, especially between 2010 and 2013. Although the shallow groundwater can be recharged from the annual climate-driven rainfall, the important facts indicate that GWS depletion is more serious in deep aquifers. The GRACE-derived result shows an overall uplift in the whole region at the 0.37-0.95 mm yr −1 level from 2004 to 2009, but the rate of change direction is inconsistent in different GPS stations at the −0.40-0.51 mm yr −1 level from 2010 to 2013. Then we removed the vertical rates, which are induced by TWS from GPS-derived data, to obtain the corrected vertical velocities caused by tectonic movement and human activities. The results show that there are uplift areas and subsidence areas in NCP. Almost the whole central and eastern region of NCP suffers serious ground subsidence caused by the anthropogenic-induced groundwater exploitation in the deep confined aquifers. In addition, the slight ground uplifts in the western region of NCP are mainly controlled by tectonic movement (e.g. Moho uplifting or mantle upwelling).

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“…Recent studies report declining trends in terrestrial water storage (TWS, a vertical integration of surface water, soil moisture, groundwater, and biomass water content) over a large region of the Middle East and Western Asia (e.g., Voss et al 2013;Forootan et al 2014;Joodaki et al 2014;Madani 2014;Al-Zyoud et al 2015). The decline is believed to be mainly due to the climate change, as well as increasing demands on freshwater (surface water and groundwater) needed to support food production and economic activities of the increasing population in the region (UNEP 2003;Gleick 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-Scale Total Water Storage and Water Flux Changes over the Arid and Semiarid Parts of the Middle East from GRACE and Reanalysis Products

et al. 2016

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Previous studies indicate that water storage over a large part of the Middle East has been decreased over the last decade. Variability in the total (hydrological) water flux (TWF, i.e., precipitation minus evapotranspiration minus runoff) and water storage changes of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin and Iran's six major basins (Khazar, Persian, Urmia, Markazi, Hamun, and Sarakhs) over 2003-2013 is assessed in this study. Our investigation is performed based on the TWF that are estimated as temporal derivatives of terrestrial water storage (TWS) changes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products and those from the reanalysis products of ERA-Interim and MERRA-Land. An inversion approach is applied to consistently estimate the spatio-temporal changes of soil moisture and groundwater storage compartments of the seven basins during the study period from GRACE TWS, altimetry, and land surface model products. The influence of TWF trends on separated water storage compartments is then explored. Our results, estimated as basin averages, indicate negative trends in the maximums of TWF peaks that reach up to -5.2 and -2.6 (mm/month/year) over 2003-2013, respectively, for the Urmia and Tigris-Euphrates basins, which are most likely due to the reported meteorological drought. Maximum amplitudes of the soil moisture compartment exhibit negative trends of -11.1, -6.6, -6.1, -4.8, -4.7, -3.8, and -1.2 (mm/year) for Urmia, Tigris-Euphrates, Khazar, Persian, Markazi, Sarakhs, and Hamun basins, respectively. Strong groundwater storage decrease is found, respectively, within the Khazar -8.6 (mm/ year) and Sarakhs -7.0 (mm/year) basins. The magnitude of water storage decline in the Urmia and Tigris-Euphrates basins is found to be bigger than the decrease in the monthly accumulated TWF indicating a contribution of human water use, as well as surface and groundwater flow to the storage decline over the study area.

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Estimating the human contribution to groundwater depletion in the Middle East, from GRACE data, land surface models, and well observations

Cited by 225 publications

References 25 publications

Groundwater Storage Changes: Present Status from GRACE Observations

Groundwater Storage Changes: Present Status from GRACE Observations

Detecting seasonal and long-term vertical displacement in the North China Plain using GRACE and GPS

Large-Scale Total Water Storage and Water Flux Changes over the Arid and Semiarid Parts of the Middle East from GRACE and Reanalysis Products

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