Groundwater law, abstraction, and responding to climate change: assessing recent law reforms in British Columbia and England

Ohdedar, Birsha

doi:10.1080/02508060.2017.1351059

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…in the discussion regarding the protection of groundwater dependant ecosystems and the status of protected water bodies (Ohdedar, 2017;Howarth, 2018).…”

Section: Impact Of Drought Management Strategies On Hydrological Droughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrating the impact of integrated drought policies on hydrological droughts

Wendt¹,

Bloomfield²,

Loon³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Managing water-human systems in times of water shortage and droughts is key to avoid overexploitation of water resources, particularly for groundwater, which is a crucial water resource during droughts sustaining both environmental and anthropogenic water demand. Drought management is often guided by drought policies to avoid crisis management and to actively introduce management strategies during droughts. However, the impact of drought management strategies on hydrological droughts is rarely assessed. In this study, we present a newly developed socio-hydrological model, simulating feedbacks between water availability and managed water use over three decades. Thereby, we aim to assess the impact of drought policies on both surface water and groundwater droughts. We tested this model in an idealised catchment based on climate data, water resource management practices, and drought policies in England. The model includes surface water storage (reservoir), groundwater storage for a range of hydrogeological conditions and optional imported surface water or groundwater. These modelled water sources can all be used to satisfy anthropogenic and environmental water demand. We tested four aspects of drought management strategies: 1) increased water supply, 2) restricted water demand, 3) conjunctive water use, and 4) maintained environmental flow requirements by restricting groundwater abstractions. These four strategies were evaluated in separate and combined scenarios. Results show mitigated droughts for both streamflow and groundwater droughts in scenarios applying conjunctive use, particularly in low groundwater storage systems. In high groundwater storage systems, maintaining environmental flows reduces hydrological droughts most. Scenarios increasing or restricting water demand have an opposing effect on droughts, although these scenarios are in balance when combined at the same time. Most combined scenarios reduce the severity and occurrence of hydrological droughts given an incremental dependency on imported water that satisfies up to a third of the total anthropogenic water demand. The necessity for importing water shows the considerable pressure on water resources and the delicate balance of water-human systems during droughts that calls for short-term and long-term sustainability targets within drought policies.

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“…in the discussion regarding the protection of groundwater dependant ecosystems and the status of protected water bodies (Ohdedar, 2017;Howarth, 2018).…”

Section: Impact Of Drought Management Strategies On Hydrological Droughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrating the impact of integrated drought policies on hydrological droughts

Wendt¹,

Bloomfield²,

Loon³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…The largest groundwater user in these management units is drinking water, followed by industrial water use, agricultural and environmental water use (BGS, 2015). Groundwater use is regulated using abstraction licences, which have changed since their introduction in 1963 (Ohdedar, 2017). Since the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in 2000, groundwater abstraction licences follow a water balance approach to ensure 'good groundwater status'.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetric impact of groundwater use on groundwater droughts

Wendt¹,

Loon²,

Bloomfield³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Groundwater use affects groundwater storage continuously, as the removal of water changes both short-term and long-term variation in groundwater level. This has implications for groundwater droughts, i.e. a below-normal groundwater level. The impact of groundwater use on groundwater droughts remains unknown. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of groundwater use on groundwater droughts adopting a methodological framework that consists of two approaches. The first approach compares groundwater monitoring sites that are potentially influenced by abstraction to uninfluenced sites. Observed groundwater droughts are compared in terms of drought occurrence, magnitude, and duration. The second approach consists of a groundwater trend test that investigates the impact of groundwater use on long-term groundwater level variation. This framework was applied to a case study of the UK. Four regional water management units in the UK were used, in which groundwater is monitored and abstractions are licensed. The potential influence of groundwater use was identified on the basis of relatively poor correlations between accumulated standardised precipitation and standardised groundwater level time series over a 30-year period from 1984 to 2014. Results of the first approach show two main patterns in groundwater drought characteristics. The first pattern shows an increase of shorter drought events, mostly during heatwaves or prior to a long drought event for influenced sites compared to uninfluenced sites. This pattern is found in three water management units where the long-term water balance is generally positive and annual average groundwater abstractions are smaller than recharge. The second pattern is found in one water management unit where temporarily groundwater abstractions exceeded recharge. In this case, groundwater droughts are lengthened and intensified in influenced sites. Results of the second approach show that nearly half of the groundwater time series have a significant trend, whilst trends in precipitation and potential evapotranspiration time series are negligible. Detected significant trends are both positive en negative, although positive trends dominate in most water management units. These positive trends, indicating rising groundwater levels, align with changes in water use regulation. This suggests that groundwater abstractions have reduced during the period of investigation. Further research is required to assess the impact of this change in groundwater abstractions on drought characteristics. The overall impact of groundwater use is summarised in a conceptual typology that illustrates the asymmetric impact of groundwater use on groundwater drought occurrence, duration, and magnitude. The long-term balance between groundwater abstraction and recharge appears to be influencing this asymmetric impact, which highlights the relation between long-term and short-term sustainable groundwater use.

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“…This seasonal change in water use was previously found to reduce correlations (Lorenzo-Lacruz, et al 2017). At the national scale and over the longer-term, we know that groundwater abstraction in England increased up until the late 1980s since when legislation has resulted in a general reduction in groundwater abstraction, but with a redistribution of where water is taken from to minimise the impacts of surface flows (Ohdedar, 2017;Whitehead and Lawrence, 2006;Environment Agency, 2010;Shepley and Streetly, 2007;Shepley et al, 2008).…”

Section: Interactive Commentmentioning

confidence: 99%

General response to Reviewer 1

Wendt¹

2020

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Groundwater law, abstraction, and responding to climate change: assessing recent law reforms in British Columbia and England

Cited by 7 publications

References 13 publications

Demonstrating the impact of integrated drought policies on hydrological droughts

Demonstrating the impact of integrated drought policies on hydrological droughts

Asymmetric impact of groundwater use on groundwater droughts

General response to Reviewer 1

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