The use and re-use of unsustainably mined groundwater: A global budget Details
Abstract
Many of the worlds major groundwater aquifers are rapidly depleting due to unsustainable groundwater pumping, while demand for food production and therefore demand for irrigation water is increasing. While it is likely that groundwater users will be impacted by the futures inevitable reduction in groundwater availability, there is a major gap in our understanding of potential impacts downstream of pumping sites. Due to inefficiencies in irrigation systems, significant amounts of abstracted groundwater become runoff, entering surface waters and flowing downstream to be re-abstracted and used again.In this study, we use a gridded water balance model to calculate the amount of unsustainably pumped groundwater that enters surface water systems by way of irrigation runoff, and quantify the additional irrigation water supplied by the re-use of this water. We assess the global budget of unsustainable groundwater sources and sinks, including downstream re-use, groundwater recharge, and flow to the oceans. Globally, we find that 80% of unsustainable groundwater is re-abstracted for irrigation either downstream or locally from groundwater recharge. This re-abstracted water contributes the water equivalent needed to irrigate 200,000 km2 of cropland globally. Including irrigation runoff reuse in an assessment of irrigation efficiency, we see that the traditional concept of irrigation efficiency (net irrigation/gross irrigation) significantly overestimates water waste. We define a basin efficiency for unsustainable groundwater use that includes re-use, and see that while global irrigation efficiency is often estimated at 50%, global average unsustainable water use efficiency is > 60%. Losing this re-use resource by increasing irrigation efficiency does little to alleviate unsustainable groundwater demands.
Department
Earth Sciences, Earth Systems Research Center
Publication Date
12-2015
Journal Title
Fall Meeting, American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Publisher
American Geophysical Union Publications
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Recommended Citation
Grogan, D.S., Prousevitch, A., Wisser, D., Lammers, R.B., & Frolking, S.E. (2015), The use and re-use of unsustainably mined groundwater: A global budget, Abstract H11H-1438 presented at 2015 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 14-18 Dec.