Impact of Irrigation over the California Central Valley on Regional Climate

Yang, Zhao; Domínguez, Francina; Zeng, Xubin; Hu, Huancui; Gupta, Hoshin; Yang, Ben

doi:10.1175/jhm-d-16-0158.1

Cited by 54 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…This novel conceptualization of drought development may help diagnose past droughts and improve seasonal forecasts (Dirmeyer, Schlosser, et al, 2009;Findell & Eltahir, 1997;Guo et al, 2012;Roundy et al, 2014;Roundy & Wood, 2015;Roy et al, 2019;Wood et al, 2015). Our results raise the importance of sustainable land use practices in upwind regions on which downwind communities rely for precipitation (DeAngelis et al, 2010;Findell et al, 2009;Findell et al, 2017;Keys et al, 2016Keys et al, , 2018Mahmood et al, 2014;Wang-Erlandsson et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2017). These results also raise questions regarding governance of transboundary precipitationsheds Keys et al, 2012Keys et al, , 2014Keys et al, , 2017Keys et al, , 2018 and cooperation between upwind and downwind communities for drought risk management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Reduced Moisture Transport Linked to Drought Propagation Across North America

Herrera-Estrada

Martínez

Domínguez

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Droughts can have devastating societal impacts. Yet, we do not fully understand the mechanisms that control their development, possibly affecting our ability to predict them. Here we run a moisture‐tracking analytical model using reanalysis data between 1980 and 2016 to explore the role of reduced moisture transport in drought propagation. We find that agricultural droughts in multiple subregions across North America may be amplified by decreased moisture transport from upwind land areas, which we link to reduced evapotranspiration and dry soil moisture upwind. We also find that decreases in precipitation recycling are correlated with decreases in moisture arriving from upwind areas. We estimate that decreases in moisture contributions from land areas accounted for 62% of the precipitation deficit during the 2012 Midwest drought. Our results suggest that the land surface may contain useful information for drought prediction and highlight the importance of sustainable land use and of regional cooperation for drought risk management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Reduced Moisture Transport Linked to Drought Propagation Across North America

Herrera-Estrada

Martínez

Domínguez

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…The impacts of irrigation and land cover change on climate have been widely studied in regional (e.g., Diffenbaugh, ; Douglas et al, ; Im et al, ; Kueppers et al, ; Lobell et al, ; Niyogi et al, ; Paul et al, ; Shukla et al, ; Yang et al, ) and global contexts (e.g., Cook et al, ; Cook et al, ; Feddema et al, ; Guimberteau et al, ; Puma & Cook, ; Sacks et al, ). While studies have examined the overall climatic effects of irrigated croplands, to the best of our knowledge, their effects have not been contrasted against each other on a global scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Influences of Land Cover and Land Management on Seasonal Climate

et al. 2018

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Anthropogenic land use and land cover change is primarily represented in climate model simulations through prescribed transitions from natural vegetation to cropland or pasture. However, recent studies have demonstrated that land management practices, especially irrigation, have distinct climate impacts. Here we disentangle the seasonal climate impacts of land cover change and irrigation across areas of high agricultural intensity using climate simulations with three different land surface scenarios: (1) natural vegetation cover/no irrigation, (2) year 2000 crop cover/no irrigation, and (3) year 2000 crop cover and irrigation rates. We find that irrigation substantially amplifies land cover‐induced climate impacts but has opposing effects across certain regions. Irrigation mostly causes surface cooling, which substantially amplifies land cover change‐induced cooling in most regions except over Central, West, and South Asia, where it reverses land cover change‐induced warming. Despite increases in net surface radiation in some regions, this cooling is associated with enhancement of latent relative to sensible heat fluxes by irrigation. Similarly, irrigation substantially enhances the wetting influence of land cover change over several regions including West Asia and the Mediterranean. The most notable contrasting impacts of these forcings on precipitation occur over South Asia, where irrigation offsets the wetting influence of land cover during the monsoon season. Differential changes in regional circulations and moist static energy induced by these forcings contribute to their precipitation impacts and are associated with differential changes in surface and tropospheric temperature gradients and moisture availability. These results emphasize the importance of including irrigation forcing to evaluate the combined impacts of land surface changes for attributing historical climatic changes and managing future impacts.

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“…Recharge in premodern floodplains was likely slower than recharge on cultivated fields, allowing water to reach thermal equilibrium with the surroundings at temperatures closer to the mean annual air temperature. The extensive irrigation with river water also impacts air temperatures through the irrigation cooling effect (Kueppers, Snyder, & Sloan, ), the height of the planetary boundary layer (Gilbert, Maxwell, & Gochis, ), and precipitation patterns (Yang et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A large range of noble gas recharge temperatures (σ = 3.1°C) is with river water also impacts air temperatures through the irrigation cooling effect (Kueppers, Snyder, & Sloan, 2007), the height of the planetary boundary layer (Gilbert, Maxwell, & Gochis, 2017), and precipitation patterns (Yang et al, 2017). Fossil (Pleistocene) groundwater has mostly recharged as local precipitation because flow paths from the foothills to the discharge areas near the valley centre are naturally longer (Izbicki, Radyk, & Michel, 2000 Local precipitation comprises 55 ± 4% of modern groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of river water recharge to the San Joaquin Valley groundwater system

Visser

Moran

Singleton

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Groundwater is not a sustainable resource, unless abstraction is balanced by recharge. Identifying the sources of recharge in a groundwater basin is critical for sustainable groundwater management. We studied the importance of river water recharge to groundwater in the south‐eastern San Joaquin Valley (24,000 km2, population 4 million). We combined dissolved noble gas concentrations, stable isotopes, tritium, and carbon‐14 analyses to analyse the sources, mechanisms, and timescales of groundwater recharge. Area‐representative groundwater sampling and numerical model input data enabled a stable isotope mass balance and quantitative estimates of river and local recharge. River recharge, identified by a lighter stable isotope signature, represents 47 ± 4% of modern groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley (recharged after 1950) but only 26 ± 4% of premodern groundwater (recharged before 1950). This implies that the importance of river water recharge in the San Joaquin valley has nearly doubled and is likely the result of a 40% increase in total recharge, caused by river water irrigation return flows and increased stream depletion and river recharge due to groundwater pumping. Compared with the large and long‐duration capacity for water storage in the subsurface, storage of water in rivers is limited in time and volume, as evidenced by cold river recharge temperatures resulting from fast infiltration and recharge. Groundwater banking of seasonal surface water flows and expansion of managed aquifer recharge practices therefore appear to be a natural and promising method for increasing the resilience of the San Joaquin Valley water supply system.

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Impact of Irrigation over the California Central Valley on Regional Climate

Cited by 54 publications

References 52 publications

Reduced Moisture Transport Linked to Drought Propagation Across North America

Reduced Moisture Transport Linked to Drought Propagation Across North America

Distinct Influences of Land Cover and Land Management on Seasonal Climate

Importance of river water recharge to the San Joaquin Valley groundwater system

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