1. Multiscale Assessment of Agricultural Consumptive Water Use in California's Central Valley
- Author
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A. J. Wong, Y. Jin, J. Medellín‐Azuara, K. T. Paw U, E. R. Kent, J. M. Clay, F. Gao, J. B. Fisher, G. Rivera, C. M. Lee, K. S. Hemes, E. Eichelmann, D. D. Baldocchi, and S. J. Hook
- Subjects
Space Geodetic Surveys ,Biogeosciences ,Volcanic Effects ,Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience ,Global Change from Geodesy ,Volcanic Hazards and Risks ,Regional Planning ,Evapotranspiration ,Oceans ,Sea Level Change ,Disaster Risk Analysis and Assessment ,Water Budgets ,Water Science and Technology ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,Climate and Interannual Variability ,Remote Sensing and Disasters ,Spatial heterogeneity ,Climate Impact ,Earthquake Ground Motions and Engineering Seismology ,Explosive Volcanism ,latent heat flux ,Earth System Modeling ,Atmospheric Processes ,Zero Hunger ,Ocean Monitoring with Geodetic Techniques ,Ocean/Atmosphere Interactions ,Atmospheric ,Regional Modeling ,Atmospheric Effects ,Environmental Engineering ,Water Management ,Life on Land ,Volcanology ,Hydrological Cycles and Budgets ,Crop ,Decadal Ocean Variability ,Land/Atmosphere Interactions ,Geodesy and Gravity ,Global Change ,Air/Sea Interactions ,Numerical Modeling ,Solid Earth ,Geological ,Ocean/Earth/atmosphere/hydrosphere/cryosphere interactions ,Water Cycles ,Modeling ,Avalanches ,Volcano Seismology ,Benefit‐cost Analysis ,Agriculture ,Computational Geophysics ,Regional Climate Change ,Natural Hazards ,Abrupt/Rapid Climate Change ,crop water consumptive use ,Informatics ,Surface Waves and Tides ,Atmospheric Composition and Structure ,AmeriFlux ,Pasture ,Volcano Monitoring ,Remote Sensing ,Consumptive water use ,Seismology ,Climatology ,Radio Oceanography ,Gravity and Isostasy ,Marine Geology and Geophysics ,Physical Modeling ,Oceanography: General ,Cryosphere ,Impacts of Global Change ,Oceanography: Physical ,Research Article ,Risk ,Oceanic ,precision irrigation ,Theoretical Modeling ,Civil Engineering ,Radio Science ,Tsunamis and Storm Surges ,Paleoceanography ,Climate Dynamics ,Farm water ,Remote Sensing of Volcanoes ,Numerical Solutions ,Climate Change and Variability ,Hydrology ,geography ,Effusive Volcanism ,Land use ,surface energy balance ,business.industry ,Climate Variability ,General Circulation ,Policy Sciences ,Climate Impacts ,Mud Volcanism ,Air/Sea Constituent Fluxes ,Mass Balance ,Ocean influence of Earth rotation ,Volcano/Climate Interactions ,Environmental science ,Preparedness and Planning ,Sea Level: Variations and Mean ,business - Abstract
Spatial estimates of crop evapotranspiration with high accuracy from the field to watershed scale have become increasingly important for water management, particularly over irrigated agriculture in semiarid regions. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment on patterns of annual agricultural water use over California's Central Valley, using 30‐m daily evapotranspiration estimates based on Landsat satellite data. A semiempirical Priestley‐Taylor approach was locally optimized and cross‐validated with available field measurements for major crops including alfalfa, almond, citrus, corn, pasture, and rice. The evapotranspiration estimates explained >70% variance in daily measurements from independent sites with an RMSE of 0.88 mm day−1. When aggregated over the Valley, we estimated an average evapotranspiration of 820 ± 290 mm yr−1 in 2014. Agricultural water use varied significantly across and within crop types, with a coefficient of variation ranging from 8% for Rice (1,110 ± 85 mm yr−1) to 59% for Pistachio (592 ± 352 mm yr−1). Total water uses in 2016 increased by 9.6%, as compared to 2014, mostly because of land‐use conversion from fallow/idle land to cropland. Analysis across 134 Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) further showed a large variation of agricultural evapotranspiration among and within GSAs, especially for tree crops, e.g., almond evapotranspiration ranging from 339 ± 80 mm yr−1 in Tracy to 1,240 ± 136 mm yr−1 in Tri‐County Water Authority. Continuous monitoring and assessment of the dynamics and spatial heterogeneity of agricultural evapotranspiration provide data‐driven guidance for more effective land use and water planning across scales., Key Points A 30‐m daily evapotranspiration product estimated using regionally optimized approach and Landsat Analysis Ready Data Collection 1Assessment of agricultural consumptive water use over Central Valley provides critical guidance for sustainable groundwater managementLarge variation of water use was found, mostly due to crop diversity, age structure, and physiological factors
- Published
- 2021
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