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Spatio-temporal analysis of groundwater-dependent precipitation based on Lagrangian moisture tracking

Groundwater abstraction for irrigation use has steadily increased over the past decades, resulting in additional evaporation to the atmosphere, and increased precipitation. The precipitation stemming from groundwater irrigation (or Groundwater-dependent precipitation) has received little attention during recent years and is solely researched by the Eulerian model. This study aims to provide a supplement and improvement of the global fate of groundwater-dependent precipitation with the Lagrangian model outcome. The analysis combines the UTrack model output between 2008 to 2017, a global groundwater irrigation area map, groundwater abstraction from PCR-GLOBWB version 1, and groundwater irrigation efficiency to generate the global groundwater-dependent precipitation trajectory from 2001 to 2010. The primary assumption is that atmospheric factors do not change significantly in all pressure levels during 2001 – 2010 and 2008 – 2017. The simulation result shows that groundwater-dependent precipitation is generally more substantial in Asia than in other continents. Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Yemen, and Afghanistan are the top six countries receiving high groundwater-dependent precipitation contributions monthly and yearly. Moreover, groundwater-dependent precipitation in the continent and country shows a significant seasonal change in the monthly average. A country or continent with a high groundwater abstraction does not necessarily receive a massive amount of groundwater-dependent precipitation regardless of monthly and yearly scale. For instance, China has a yearly average groundwater abstraction of 100 km3 year-1 but receives less than 1% groundwater-dependent precipitation contribution per year. Approximately 75% of groundwater-dependent precipitation falls into the land, and 25% ends in the ocean from 2001 to 2010. The groundwater-dependent precipitation does not significantly contribute to land and ocean, with 0.16% and 0.015%, respectively. Consequently, the study suggests groundwater-dependent precipitation does not have a greater effect on downwind area precipitation on a yearly scale but a larger effect during a specific month. The highest monthly average groundwater-dependent contribution is 18% in January, whereas the highest yearly groundwater-dependent contribution is 2.5% in 2006. Major regions with high groundwater-dependent precipitation contributions are found along the Himalayas Range from January to April and moving eastward to Arabic Peninsula in July.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-213719
Date January 2022
CreatorsLi, Daowei
PublisherStockholms universitet, Institutionen för naturgeografi
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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