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Intensification of hydrological drought in California by human water management

Intensification of hydrological drought in California by human water management
Intensification of hydrological drought in California by human water management
We analyze the contribution of human water management to the intensification and mitigation of hydrological drought over California using the PCR-GLOBWB hydrological model for the period 1979-2014. We demonstrate that considering water management results in more accurate discharge representation. During the severe 2014 drought, water management alleviated the drought deficit by ?50% in Southern California through reservoir operation during low flow periods. However, human water consumption (mostly irrigation) in the Central Valley increased drought duration and deficit by 50% and 50-100%, respectively. Return level analysis indicates that there is more than 50% chance that the probability of occurrence of an extreme 2014-magnitude drought event was at least doubled under the influence of human activities compared to natural variability. This impact is most significant over the San Joaquin Drainage basin with a 50% and 75% likelihood that the return period is more than 3.5 and 1.5 times larger, respectively, because of human activities.
0094-8276
1777-1785
He, Xiaogang
04cc8809-035c-487a-b09d-0d50821c5f22
Wada, Yoshihide
682ed230-5586-496a-b105-ee06ac3d6a8b
Wanders, Niko
5db872d0-14a1-41b7-8a15-8923fed069f3
Sheffield, Justin
dd66575b-a4dc-4190-ad95-df2d6aaaaa6b
He, Xiaogang
04cc8809-035c-487a-b09d-0d50821c5f22
Wada, Yoshihide
682ed230-5586-496a-b105-ee06ac3d6a8b
Wanders, Niko
5db872d0-14a1-41b7-8a15-8923fed069f3
Sheffield, Justin
dd66575b-a4dc-4190-ad95-df2d6aaaaa6b

He, Xiaogang, Wada, Yoshihide, Wanders, Niko and Sheffield, Justin (2017) Intensification of hydrological drought in California by human water management. Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (4), 1777-1785. (doi:10.1002/2016GL071665).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We analyze the contribution of human water management to the intensification and mitigation of hydrological drought over California using the PCR-GLOBWB hydrological model for the period 1979-2014. We demonstrate that considering water management results in more accurate discharge representation. During the severe 2014 drought, water management alleviated the drought deficit by ?50% in Southern California through reservoir operation during low flow periods. However, human water consumption (mostly irrigation) in the Central Valley increased drought duration and deficit by 50% and 50-100%, respectively. Return level analysis indicates that there is more than 50% chance that the probability of occurrence of an extreme 2014-magnitude drought event was at least doubled under the influence of human activities compared to natural variability. This impact is most significant over the San Joaquin Drainage basin with a 50% and 75% likelihood that the return period is more than 3.5 and 1.5 times larger, respectively, because of human activities.

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Accepted/In Press date: 23 January 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 25 January 2017
Published date: 18 February 2017
Additional Information: Originally submitted and accepted under the title "Human water management intensifies hydrological drought in California"
Organisations: Global Env Change & Earth Observation

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 405284
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/405284
ISSN: 0094-8276
PURE UUID: 80bb6893-e5f9-43d6-a261-bdba58701571
ORCID for Justin Sheffield: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2400-0630

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 02 Feb 2017 11:59
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:23

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Contributors

Author: Xiaogang He
Author: Yoshihide Wada
Author: Niko Wanders

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