Integrated hydrology and operations modeling to evaluate climate change impacts in an agricultural valley irrigated with snowmelt runoff

Water Resources Research
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Abstract

Applying models to developed agricultural regions remains a difficult problem because there are no existing modeling codes that represent both the complex physics of the hydrology and anthropogenic manipulations to water distribution and consumption. We apply an integrated groundwater – surface water and hydrologic river operations model to an irrigated river valley in northwestern Nevada/northern California, United States to evaluate the impacts of climate change on snow-fed agricultural systems that use surface water and groundwater conjunctively. We explicitly represent individual surface water rights within the hydrologic model and allow the integrated code to change river diversions in response to earlier snowmelt runoff and water availability. Historically under-used supplemental groundwater rights are dynamically activated within the model to offset diminished surface water deliveries. The model accounts for feedbacks between the natural hydrology and anthropogenic stresses, which is a first-of-its-kind assessment of the impacts of climate change on individual water rights, and more broadly on river basin operations. Earlier snowmelt decreases annual surface water deliveries to all water rights, not just the junior water rights, owing to a lack of surface water storage in the upper river basin capable of capturing earlier runoff. Conversely, downstream irrigators with access to reservoir storage benefit from earlier runoff flowing past upstream points of diversion prior to the start of the irrigation season. Despite regional shifts toward greater reliance on groundwater for irrigation, crop consumption (a common surrogate for crop yield) decreases due to spatiotemporal changes in water supply that preferentially impact a subset of growers in the region.

Study Area

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Integrated hydrology and operations modeling to evaluate climate change impacts in an agricultural valley irrigated with snowmelt runoff
Series title Water Resources Research
DOI 10.1029/2020WR027924
Volume 57
Issue 6
Year Published 2021
Language English
Publisher American Geophysical Union
Contributing office(s) Alaska Science Center, Nevada Water Science Center, Texas Water Science Center, WMA - Integrated Modeling and Prediction Division
Description e2020WR027924, 30 p.
Country United States
State California
Other Geospatial Carson Valley system
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