scholarly journals Village-level supply reliability of surface water irrigation in rural China: effects of climate change

Author(s):  
Yanrong Li ◽  
Jinxia Wang

Abstract. Surface water, as the largest part of water resources, plays an important role on China's agricultural production and food security. And surface water is vulnerable to climate change. This paper aims to examine the status of the supply reliability of surface water irrigation, and discusses how it is affected by climate change in rural China. The field data we used in this study was collected from a nine-province field survey during 2012 and 2013. Climate data are offered by China's National Meteorological Information Center which contains temperature and precipitation in the past 30 years. A Tobit model (or censored regression model) was used to estimate the influence of climate change on supply reliability of surface water irrigation. Descriptive results showed that, surface water supply reliability was 74 % in the past 3 years. Econometric results revealed that climate variables significantly influenced the supply reliability of surface water irrigation. Specifically, temperature is negatively related with the supply reliability of surface water irrigation; but precipitation positively influences the supply reliability of surface water irrigation. Besides, climate influence differs by seasons. In a word, this paper improves our understanding of the impact of climate change on agriculture irrigation and water supply reliability in the micro scale, and provides a scientific basis for relevant policy making.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-371
Author(s):  
Yanrong Li ◽  
Jinxia Wang ◽  
Jikun Huang ◽  
Bihm Adhikari ◽  
Liangzhi You

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation, and discuss how it is affected by climate change and tubewell density in rural China. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a nine-province village survey and secondary climate data. A Tobit model (or censored regression model) was used to estimate the determinants of supply reliability of groundwater irrigation. Findings Results show that the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation was 89 percent on average in the past three years. The non-linear relationship in the econometric results revealed that the 30-year annual temperature significantly influenced the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation. When the temperature rises above the turning point (6.30°C), it shifts from a positive to a negative relationship with the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation. The 30-year annual temperature in eight of the nine provinces (i.e. except for Jilin Province) was higher than the turning point. If the temperature increases by 20°C in the future, other factors being constant, the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation will decline by 20 percent. However, if precipitation increases by 10 percent, the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation could improve by 3 percent, while reducing precipitation by 10 percent will lower the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation by 3 percent. Increasing the density of tubewells considerably improves the supply reliability of groundwater irrigation. However, although increasing the density of tubewells may yield enough groundwater for irrigation, this one-sided approach raises sustainability concerns. Research limitations/implications Although increasing the density of tubewells may ensure that enough groundwater is available for irrigation, such a conclusion is one sided, and sustainability concerns should be raised in assessing this method of creating supply reliability. Originality/value This paper improves the understanding of the impact of climate variables on agriculture irrigation and water supply reliability in the micro scale, and provides a scientific basis for relevant policy making.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Christoph Haas ◽  
Steffen Birk

<p>Climate change is mostly associated with the term of “global warming” and thus conjures images of a hotter and dryer future. Indeed, the Alpine region already has seen much higher warming compared to the average of the northern hemisphere [1]. However, because of the impact of other climate variables (e.g. precipitation) and vegetation responses, warming does not necessarily have to mean higher evapotranspiration and dryer conditions [2]. This matter is further complicated as groundwater is closely interlinked with surface water. While surface water is of course related to precipitation, it is also one of the major pathways for humans to have a large and direct impact on the water cycle, e.g. by the construction of run-of-river powerplants. A further direct human impact is the abstraction of groundwater. For this factor, it is generally understood that water use increased with economic activity until the rise of environmentalism in the 1980s and more efficient water use stopped this trend and turned it into a decrease in many industrialized countries.</p><p> </p><p>Assessing impacts of climate change on groundwater resources therefore is a challenging task. In order to assess these, as well as direct human impacts on groundwater, we analyzed a large dataset (1017 groundwater level-, 426 stream stage- and 646 precipitation time series) covering Austria from earlier than 1930 until 2015, with the majority of the data from the 1970s on.</p><p> </p><p>It is shown that groundwater shows a strong falling trend, followed by a rise, fitting the human water use, whereas precipitation shows a more moderate trend. River stages show a completely deviating behavior before the 1980s but also follow the rising trend afterwards [3]. While this does not yet prove a causal link, it does highlight the possibility that human use could affect groundwater levels more than the climate, especially since Austria almost exclusively uses groundwater for human use and the wells in the dataset are all located in the populated lowlands.</p><p> </p><p>Going beyond [3], we take a closer look at the history and future of the human factor, namely water abstraction for public water supply and the effects of humans on rivers. We show that Austria has a very particular form of water supply, mainly due to the special role of the capital, Vienna, whose history could see a repeat in the near future. Under a changing climate, there is also a possibility for further changes in Austria’s rivers. In addition to effects of such changes on groundwater levels, we try to address potential impacts on the chemical quality and ecological status of groundwater.</p><p> </p><p>References:</p><p>[1] Gobiet et al., 2014, 21<sup>st</sup> century climate change in the European alps-a review. Sci. Total. Environ. 493, 1138 – 1151.</p><p>[2] Pangle et al., 2014, Rainfall seasonality and an ecohydrological feedback offset the potential impact of climate warming on evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge, Water Resour. Res., 50, 1308–1321</p><p>[3] Haas & Birk, 2019, Trends in Austrian groundwater – climate or human impact? J. Hydrol.: Reg. Stud. 22, 100597</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Wachholz ◽  
Seifeddine Jomaa ◽  
Olaf Büttner ◽  
Robert Reinecke ◽  
Michael Rode ◽  
...  

<p>Due to global climate change, the past decade has been the warmest for Germany since the beginning of climate records. Not only air temperature but also precipitation patterns are changing and therefore influencing the hydrologic cycle. This will certainly influence the chemical status of ground- and surface water bodies as mobilization, dilution and chemical reactions of contaminants are altered. However, it is uncertain if those alterations will impact water quality for better or worse and how they occur spatially. Since water management in Europe is handled at the regional scale, we suggest that an investigation is needed at the same scale to capture and quantify the different responses of the chemical status of water bodies to climate change and extreme weather conditions. In this study, we use open-access data to (1) quantify changes in temperature, precipitation, streamflow and groundwater levels for the past 40 - 60 years and (2) assess their impacts on nutrient concentrations in surface- and groundwater bodies. To disentangle management from climate effects we pay special attention to extreme weather conditions in the past decade. Referring to the Water Framework Directive, we chose the river basin district Elbe as our area of interest. Preliminary results indicate that especially the nitrate concentrations in surface water bodies of the Elbe catchment were positively affected in the last two years, while no significant impact on nitrate levels in shallow groundwater bodies was witnessed. However, many wells showed the first significant increase in water table depth in both years since 1985, raising the question of how fast groundwater-surface water interactions will change in the next years.</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Hawkins ◽  
Bradley J. Austin

The Savage River in western Maryland and its associated reservoir and watershed serves many purposes including recreation, drinking water supply, and auxiliary water supply for Washington DC. Streamflow on the Savage River was modeled using a simple hydrologic model and validated with historical streamflow observations. Future projected climate data were used to drive the model to assess the impact of temperature and precipitation changes on future streamflow. Winter streamflow is projected to increase, while spring, summer, and fall streamflow are projected to decrease. Annual streamflow totals show a slight negative trend over the coming century. Future changes in precipitation are more influential on future streamflow during the winter while temperature may be more important during the summer and fall. On an annual basis, by the year 2098, the impacts of temperature and precipitation will essentially cancel each other out resulting in only a small negative trend in annual streamflow. Increased streamflow during the winter months may not be able to compensate for decreased flow during the remainder of the year which raises concerns about the ability of the reservoir to supply water during future droughts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Lu-yu Liu ◽  
Yi Liu ◽  
Man Zhang ◽  
Cheng-bang An

AbstractWithin the mountain altitudinal vegetation belts, the shift of forest tree lines and subalpine steppe belts to high altitudes constitutes an obvious response to global climate change. However, whether or not similar changes occur in steppe belts (low altitude) and nival belts in different areas within mountain systems remain undetermined. It is also unknown if these, responses to climate change are consistent. Here, using Landsat remote sensing images from 1989 to 2015, we obtained the spatial distribution of altitudinal vegetation belts in different periods of the Tianshan Mountains in Northwestern China. We suggest that the responses from different altitudinal vegetation belts to global climate change are different. The changes in the vegetation belts at low altitudes are spatially different. In high-altitude regions (higher than the forest belts), however, the trend of different altitudinal belts is consistent. Specifically, we focused on analyses of the impact of changes in temperature and precipitation on the nival belts, desert steppe belts, and montane steppe belts. The results demonstrated that the temperature in the study area exhibited an increasing trend, and is the main factor of altitudinal vegetation belts change in the Tianshan Mountains. In the context of a significant increase in temperature, the upper limit of the montane steppe in the eastern and central parts will shift to lower altitudes, which may limit the development of local animal husbandry. The montane steppe in the west, however, exhibits the opposite trend, which may augment the carrying capacity of pastures and promote the development of local animal husbandry. The lower limit of the nival belt will further increase in all studied areas, which may lead to an increase in surface runoff in the central and western regions.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1548
Author(s):  
Suresh Marahatta ◽  
Deepak Aryal ◽  
Laxmi Prasad Devkota ◽  
Utsav Bhattarai ◽  
Dibesh Shrestha

This study aims at analysing the impact of climate change (CC) on the river hydrology of a complex mountainous river basin—the Budhigandaki River Basin (BRB)—using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model that was calibrated and validated in Part I of this research. A relatively new approach of selecting global climate models (GCMs) for each of the two selected RCPs, 4.5 (stabilization scenario) and 8.5 (high emission scenario), representing four extreme cases (warm-wet, cold-wet, warm-dry, and cold-dry conditions), was applied. Future climate data was bias corrected using a quantile mapping method. The bias-corrected GCM data were forced into the SWAT model one at a time to simulate the future flows of BRB for three 30-year time windows: Immediate Future (2021–2050), Mid Future (2046–2075), and Far Future (2070–2099). The projected flows were compared with the corresponding monthly, seasonal, annual, and fractional differences of extreme flows of the simulated baseline period (1983–2012). The results showed that future long-term average annual flows are expected to increase in all climatic conditions for both RCPs compared to the baseline. The range of predicted changes in future monthly, seasonal, and annual flows shows high uncertainty. The comparative frequency analysis of the annual one-day-maximum and -minimum flows shows increased high flows and decreased low flows in the future. These results imply the necessity for design modifications in hydraulic structures as well as the preference of storage over run-of-river water resources development projects in the study basin from the perspective of climate resilience.


2021 ◽  
pp. 14-20
Author(s):  
M. I. LOSKIN ◽  

The current state of agricultural land reclamation in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), its role in agricultural production of the republic, taking into account the impact of climate change on irrigation facilities, is considered. It has been established that at present in the sphere of public administration in the field of land reclamation in the republic there are estuary irrigation systems, drainage systems and agricultural water supply facilities, as well as group water pipelines for water supply of rural settlements and irrigation of agricultural land.


2018 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. 277-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adebayo J. Adeloye ◽  
Bankaru-Swamy Soundharajan

AbstractHedging is universally recognized as a useful operational practice in surface water reservoirs to temporally redistribute water supplies and thereby avoid large, crippling water shortages. When based on the zones of available water in storage, hedging has traditionally involved a static rationing (i.e. supply to demand) ratio. However, given the usual seasonality of reservoir inflows, it is also possible that hedging could be dynamic with seasonally varying rationing ratios. This study examined the effect of static and dynamic hedging policies on the performance of the Pong reservoir in India during a period of climate change. The results show that the reservoir vulnerability was unacceptably high (≥60%) without hedging and that this vulnerability further deteriorated as the catchment became drier due to projected climate change. The time- and volume-based reliabilities were acceptable. The introduction of static hedging drastically reduced the vulnerability to <25%, although the hedging reduction in the water supplied during normal operational conditions was only 17%. Further analyses with dynamic hedging provided only modest improvements in vulnerability. The significance of this study is its demonstration of the effectiveness of hedging in offsetting the impact of water shortages caused by climate change and the fact that static hedging can match more complex dynamic hedging policies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sho Momiyama ◽  
Masaki Sagehashi ◽  
Michihiro Akiba

Abstract Adverse effects of future climate change on water supply systems are of concern. High turbidity caused by abrupt flood, and drought caused by continuous dry days are the major risks. To assess such risks, a comprehensive method to simulate hydrology with high spatiotemporal resolution should be developed. In this study, a series of methods from parameter estimation to future simulation using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was demonstrated for Sagami Dam reservoir, which is a typical water supply reservoir in Japan. A proposed parameter calibration method by optimizing percent bias followed by optimizing Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency gave good performance of model prediction of the daily average reservoir inflow in the past. Using this model, the changes in inflow under expected climate change were simulated. Three predicted daily climates by the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 5 (MIROC5) under three representative concentration pathways, i.e., RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5, in 2081–2100 were used for the simulation, whereas observed daily climate during 1981–2000 was used as the past reference. The risks were discussed by considering their seasonality, indicating increases in flood and drought in June and July, and in February and April, respectively.


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