Impact of Irrigation on Regional Climate Over Eastern China

Kang, Suchul; Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.

doi:10.1029/2019gl082396

Cited by 43 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Understanding the specific environment impact of irrigation is of great significance to fully understand the regional climate response to water management, and is critical for many disciplines, such as hydrology, meteorology and ecology. The amount and extent of the studies (e.g., Adegoke et al., 2003; Harding & Snyder, 2012; Kang & Eltahir, 2019; Leng et al., 2013; Lobell et al., 2009; Ozdogan et al., 2010; Pei et al., 2016; Qian et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2018; B. Yang et al., 2016; Z. Yang et al., 2017; Zhang, Ding, et al., 2020; X. Zhang et al., 2017; M. Zhang et al., 2019) documented in the Introduction section on evaluating irrigation‐induced climatic effects also reflect the importance of this topic. China is a large agricultural country (Siebert et al., 2005), wherein irrigation provides necessary water for crop maintenance and has the central role in ensuring the food security and welfare of people.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, in the Yangtze River Basin as a typical humid region, irrigation accounts for 43.6% of total water use (Changjiang Water Resources Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources, 2015). Nonetheless, in the available literature on climatic effects of irrigation over China, most studies (e.g., Han & Yang, 2013; Kang & Eltahir, 2019; Shi et al., 2014; Wen & Jin, 2012; Wu et al., 2018; L. Xu et al., 2017; B. Yang et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2016; Zhang, Ding, et al., 2020a; X. Zhang et al., 2017) focused on the climatic effects of irrigation across arid and semiarid areas in northwest China and north China (e.g., North China Plain, Heihe Catchment, Huang‐Huai‐Hai Plain, Tianshan Mountain‐Oasis‐Desert area, Northeastern China, and Loess Plateau). The climatic effects of irrigation in other heavily irrigated or humid areas over China remain relatively less investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating the Climatic Effects of Irrigation Over China by Using the WRF‐Noah Model System With Mosaic Approach

et al. 2021

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Investigation on the climatic effects of irrigation is of great significance to fully understand the impact of water management on the Earth's environment and hydrological cycle. To comprehensively explore the effects of irrigation across different climatic regions over China, we propose a novel combined irrigation scheme (including dynamic and fixed irrigation schemes) into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)‐Noah‐mosaic model. Two experiments (with and without irrigation) are designed to simulate the impacts of irrigation over China on regional climate. As irrigation increases the latent heat flux but decreases the sensible heat flux and surface temperature, and the magnitudes of corresponding change are highly dependent on the irrigation amounts and irrigation fraction, the evaporative cooling effects significantly reduce the warm bias over extensive irrigation area during crop growing seasons. Meanwhile, irrigation increases soil moisture during both irrigated and non‐irrigated seasons. Compared with the dynamic irrigation scheme, the fixed irrigation scheme results in relatively higher subsurface runoffs due to the continuous infiltration. In addition, the irrigation‐induced changes on precipitation during spring (March–May) are weaker than that during summer (June–August). The opposed effects of irrigation cooling and wetting on generating convective precipitation, and the irrigation‐induced changes in large‐scale circulation jointly give rise to the heterogeneous changes of precipitation. Besides, the subgrid‐scale irrigation scheme can capture the climatic effects of irrigation in some grids where the dominant land use types are not cropland, indicating that in mesoscale simulation, climate model coupled with subgrid‐scale irrigation scheme may improve climate variables trends attribution studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the Climatic Effects of Irrigation Over China by Using the WRF‐Noah Model System With Mosaic Approach

et al. 2021

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“…The climatology of China's daily and seasonal temperatures have been affected as well: in Xinjiang province in Northwest China, the warming trend in growing season daily average surface temperature among those stations adjacent to cultivation was smaller than those stations with little cultivated land nearby (Han and Yang 2013). In parts of Northeast China, a similar response has been documented, with the cooling effects of expanding irrigation (Kang and Eltahir 2019) being sufficiently large to dampen or fully-offset the warming signal from greenhouse gas emissions (Zhu et al 2012, Zhao et al 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Seasonal tropospheric cooling in Northeast China associated with cropland expansion

Lee

Mankin

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Large-scale agricultural expansion can influence near-surface climate by altering surface energy fluxes, water, and albedo. It is less clear whether such effects extend through the full troposphere and how such effects vary in time. Here we use a novel dataset documenting the massive land use and land cover change due to agricultural expansion in Northeast China from 1982 to 2010 to assess how such expansion has influenced climate over the full troposphere. Confronting our land classification and climate data with a number of statistical approaches (linear regression, correlation analysis, Grangercausality), we find that cropland significantly increased by ∼28% over the near 30 year period in Northeast China-an average rate of nearly a percentage per year. This massive 30 year agricultural expansion is tightly associated with near-surface cooling identified in station data during the late growing season (August to September). Assuming no cropland expansion over the 30 year period, surface temperature would have increased by 0.93°C±0.4°C. Furthermore, the fingerprint of cropland-associated cooling extends upward into the atmospheric column, influencing the vertical structure of the regional troposphere and potentially its circulation. For every 10 percentage points increase in cropland fraction over Northeast China, regional full-troposphere temperature and geopotential height significantly decrease by 0.2°C-0.6°C and 20 m-80 m, respectively. These observed relationships are remarkably coherent across datasets, methodological choices, atmospheric levels, and theory, suggesting that the observational effects we identify are robust and imply the possibility of detectable land use change effects on regional circulation, with potential consequences for the East Asian monsoon.

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“…The Yalong River is the largest tributary of the Jinsha River, with both rivers merging at Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province. Human-induced land cover change is reported to have an impact on the regional climate [48]; however, Yin et al [49] pointed out that for the whole JRB, the share of each primary land use category did not vary notably from 1975 to 2000. Additionally, from 1970 to 2017, land use change exerted little impact on runoff extremes, while climate change was one of the main factors that led to changes in extreme hydrological situations [50].…”

Section: Study Area and Observation Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovative Trend Analysis of Air Temperature and Precipitation in the Jinsha River Basin, China

Dong

Jia

Sarukkalige

et al. 2020

Water

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Trend detection based on hydroclimatological time series is crucial for understanding climate change. In this study, the innovative trend analysis (ITA) method was applied to investigate trends in air temperature and precipitation over the Jinsha River Basin (JRB), China, from 1961 to 2016 based on 40 meteorological stations. Climatic factors series were divided into three categories according to percentile, and the hidden trends were evaluated separately. The ITA results show that annual and seasonal temperatures have significantly increased whereas the variation range of annual temperature tended to narrow. Spatial pattern analysis of the temperature indicates that high elevation areas show more increasing trends than flat areas. Furthermore, according to ITA, significant increase trends are observed in annual precipitation and “high” category of spring precipitation. The sub-basins results show a significant decreasing trend in elevation zones of ≤2000 m and an increasing trend where elevation is >2000 m. Moreover, linkage between temperature and precipitation was analyzed and the potential impact of the combined changes was demonstrated. The results of this study provide a reference for future water resources planning in the JRB and will help advance the understanding of climate change in similar areas.

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Impact of Irrigation on Regional Climate Over Eastern China

Cited by 43 publications

References 38 publications

Simulating the Climatic Effects of Irrigation Over China by Using the WRF‐Noah Model System With Mosaic Approach

Simulating the Climatic Effects of Irrigation Over China by Using the WRF‐Noah Model System With Mosaic Approach

Seasonal tropospheric cooling in Northeast China associated with cropland expansion

Innovative Trend Analysis of Air Temperature and Precipitation in the Jinsha River Basin, China

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