Marios Sophocleous | USGS Science

USGS2007

Global impacts of conversions from natural to agricultural ecosystems on water resources: Quantity versus quality

Past land use changes have greatly impacted global water resources, with often opposing effects on water quantity and quality. Increases in rain‐fed cropland (460%) and pastureland (560%) during the past 300 years from forest and grasslands decreased evapotranspiration and increased recharge (two orders of magnitude) and streamflow (one order of magnitude). However, increased water quantity degraded water quality by mobilization of salts, salinization caused by shallow water tables, and fertilizer leaching into underlying aquifers that discharge to streams. Since the 1950s, irrigated agriculture has expanded globally by 174%, accounting for ∼90% of global freshwater consumption. Irrigation based on surface water reduced streamflow and raised water tables resulting in waterlogging in many areas (China, India, and United States). Marked increases in groundwater‐fed irrigation in the last few decades in these areas has lowered water tables (≤1 m/yr) and reduced streamflow. Degradation of water quality in irrigated areas has resulted from processes similar to those in rain‐fed agriculture: salt mobilization, salinization in waterlogged areas, and fertilizer leaching. Strategies for remediating water resource problems related to agriculture often have opposing effects on water quantity and quality. Long time lags (decades to centuries) between land use changes and system response (e.g., recharge, streamflow, and water quality), particularly in semiarid regions, mean that the full impact of land use changes has not been realized in many areas and remediation to reverse impacts will also take a long time. Future land use changes should consider potential impacts on water resources, particularly trade‐offs between water, salt, and nutrient balances, to develop sustainable water resources to meet human and ecosystem needs.

Water Resources Research↗

USGS2005

Evaluation of simplified stream-aquifer depletion models for water rights administration

We assess the predictive accuracy of Glover's (1974) stream-aquifer analytical solutions, which are commonly used in administering water rights, and evaluate the impact of the assumed idealizations on administrative and management decisions. To achieve these objectives, we evaluate the predictive capabilities of the Glover stream-aquifer depletion model against the MODFLOW numerical standard, which, unlike the analytical model, can handle increasing hydrogeologic complexity. We rank-order and quantify the relative importance of the various assumptions on which the analytical model is based, the three most important being: (1) streambed clogging as quantified by streambed-aquifer hydraulic conductivity contrast; (2) degree of stream partial penetration; and (3) aquifer heterogeneity. These three factors relate directly to the multidimensional nature of the aquifer flow conditions. From these considerations, future efforts to reduce the uncertainty in stream depletion-related administrative decisions should primarily address these three factors in characterizing the stream-aquifer process. We also investigate the impact of progressively coarser model grid size on numerically estimating stream leakage and conclude that grid size effects are relatively minor. Therefore, when modeling is required, coarser model grids could be used thus minimizing the input data requirements.

Groundwater↗