Environmental Research Letters (Jan 2022)
Streamflow droughts aggravated by human activities despite management
- Anne F Van Loon,
- Sally Rangecroft,
- Gemma Coxon,
- Micha Werner,
- Niko Wanders,
- Giuliano Di Baldassarre,
- Erik Tijdeman,
- Marianne Bosman,
- Tom Gleeson,
- Alexandra Nauditt,
- Amir Aghakouchak,
- Jose Agustin Breña-Naranjo,
- Omar Cenobio-Cruz,
- Alexandre Cunha Costa,
- Miriam Fendekova,
- Graham Jewitt,
- Daniel G Kingston,
- Jessie Loft,
- Sarah M Mager,
- Iman Mallakpour,
- Ilyas Masih,
- Héctor Maureira-Cortés,
- Elena Toth,
- Pieter Van Oel,
- Floris Van Ogtrop,
- Koen Verbist,
- Jean-Philippe Vidal,
- Li Wen,
- Meixiu Yu,
- Xing Yuan,
- Miao Zhang,
- Henny A J Van Lanen
Affiliations
- Anne F Van Loon
- ORCiD
- Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Sally Rangecroft
- School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Plymouth , Exeter, United Kingdom
- Gemma Coxon
- ORCiD
- School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol , Bristol, United Kingdom
- Micha Werner
- ORCiD
- IHE Delft Institute for Water Education , Delft, The Netherlands
- Niko Wanders
- ORCiD
- Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University , Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Giuliano Di Baldassarre
- ORCiD
- Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University , Uppsala, Sweden
- Erik Tijdeman
- ORCiD
- Professorship in Hydrology and Climatology, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University , Heidelberg, Germany
- Marianne Bosman
- Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management Group, Wageningen University , Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Tom Gleeson
- ORCiD
- Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria , Victoria, Canada
- Alexandra Nauditt
- Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics, Cologne Technical University of Applied Sciences , Cologne, Germany
- Amir Aghakouchak
- ORCiD
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Earth System Science, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States of America; Department of Earth System Science, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States of America
- Jose Agustin Breña-Naranjo
- Mexican Institute for Water Technology , Jiutepec, Morelos, Mexico
- Omar Cenobio-Cruz
- Observatori de l’Ebre (OE), Ramon Llull University—CSIC , Barcelona, Spain
- Alexandre Cunha Costa
- ORCiD
- Institute of Engineering and Sustainable Development, Universidade da Integração Internacional da Lusofonia Afro-Brasileira (Unilab) , Redenção, Brazil
- Miriam Fendekova
- Comenius University , Bratislava, Slovakia
- Graham Jewitt
- IHE Delft Institute for Water Education , Delft, The Netherlands; Centre for Water Resources Research, University of KwaZulu-Natal , Pietermaritzburg, South Africa; Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Technical University Delft , Delft, The Netherlands
- Daniel G Kingston
- ORCiD
- School of Geography , University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
- Jessie Loft
- School of Geography , University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
- Sarah M Mager
- ORCiD
- School of Geography , University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
- Iman Mallakpour
- ORCiD
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Earth System Science, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States of America
- Ilyas Masih
- IHE Delft Institute for Water Education , Delft, The Netherlands
- Héctor Maureira-Cortés
- Water Centre for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones for Latin America and the Caribbean , La Serena, Chile
- Elena Toth
- ORCiD
- Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna , Bologna, Italy
- Pieter Van Oel
- ORCiD
- Water Resources Management group, Wageningen University , Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Floris Van Ogtrop
- ORCiD
- School of Life and Environmental Science, The University of Sydney , Sydney, Australia
- Koen Verbist
- Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) , Harare, Zimbabwe
- Jean-Philippe Vidal
- ORCiD
- RiverLy, INRAE , Villeurbanne, France
- Li Wen
- ORCiD
- Science, Economics and Insights Division , NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment the State Government of New South Wales, Parramatta, NSW, Australia
- Meixiu Yu
- ORCiD
- College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University , Nanjing, People’s Republic of China
- Xing Yuan
- ORCiD
- Key Laboratory of Hydrometeorological Disaster Mechanism and Warning of Ministry of Water Resources, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology , Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; School of Hydrology and Water Resources, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology , Nanjing, China
- Miao Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Hydrometeorological Disaster Mechanism and Warning of Ministry of Water Resources, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology , Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; School of Hydrology and Water Resources, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology , Nanjing, China
- Henny A J Van Lanen
- ORCiD
- Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management Group, Wageningen University , Wageningen, The Netherlands
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5def
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 17,
no. 4
p. 044059
Abstract
Human activities both aggravate and alleviate streamflow drought. Here we show that aggravation is dominant in contrasting cases around the world analysed with a consistent methodology. Our 28 cases included different combinations of human-water interactions. We found that water abstraction aggravated all drought characteristics, with increases of 20%–305% in total time in drought found across the case studies, and increases in total deficit of up to almost 3000%. Water transfers reduced drought time and deficit by up to 97%. In cases with both abstraction and water transfers into the catchment or augmenting streamflow from groundwater, the water inputs could not compensate for the aggravation of droughts due to abstraction and only shift the effects in space or time. Reservoir releases for downstream water use alleviated droughts in the dry season, but also led to deficits in the wet season by changing flow seasonality. This led to minor changes in average drought duration (−26 to +38%) and moderate changes in average drought deficit (−86 to +369%). Land use showed a smaller impact on streamflow drought, also with both increases and decreases observed (−48 to +98%). Sewage return flows and pipe leakage possibly counteracted the effects of increased imperviousness in urban areas; however, untangling the effects of land use change on streamflow drought is challenging. This synthesis of diverse global cases highlights the complexity of the human influence on streamflow drought and the added value of empirical comparative studies. Results indicate both intended and unintended consequences of water management and infrastructure on downstream society and ecosystems.
Keywords