Scope and limitations of drought management within complex human–natural systems

Jaeger, William K.; Amos, Adell L.; Conklin, David R.; Langpap, Christian; Moore, Kathleen Dean; Plantinga, Andrew J.

doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0326-y

Cited by 33 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In addition to natural climate variability, the increased human influences on the environment are leading to more intensified drought events (Haile et al, 2019;Jaeger et al, 2019;Margariti, Rangecroft, Parry, Wendt, & Van Loon, 2019). Marvel et al (2019) provided historical evidence of human influences in global droughts since the early 20th century .…”

Section: Drought In the Human-modified Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the absence of effective mitigation, anthropogenic warming is anticipated to face an unprecedented increase in drought events in the future (Samaniego et al, ). Under complex human–natural systems, drought management needs efficient policies effective at conserving water to mitigate water shortages, provided the timing and location of conservation and shortages are matched (Jaeger et al, ). Hence, human influence on drought is likely to continue verifying the accuracy of climate models that could provide better drought predictions, which are important for decision‐makers and society.…”

Section: Assessment Of Drought In the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought: Progress in broadening its understanding

et al. 2019

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Drought affects many aspects of society and its impact is global. To this end, rendering recurrent drought occurrences is a key research focus. Recently, in addition to existing knowledge, progress in scientific advancements regarding drought have been observed on a regional and global scale. Here, we reviewed and outlined current and emerging scientific developments in drought, focusing on progress made in recent years. In the human‐modified world, the anthropogenic effects on drought were dominant and drought‐frequency showed a prominent increase. In this study, we have identified the development of drought concepts, types, and indices, and their indicators were developed as sector‐specific, comprehensive, and oriented towards multiple scales. Anthropogenic changes have enhanced hydrological processes and affected the development of drought. Urbanization, deforestation, and related human activities have aggravated drought. Climate change has had an exacerbating role in drought, which is expected to increase during the 21st century. Human communities, in particular, are undertaking activities that cause droughts; suffering from and coping with their impact. In addition, the direct and indirect effects of drought need reconsideration. As such, the health impact of droughts is a concern in drought‐vulnerable societies and its burden on public health is largely unknown. The need for drought recovery to aid in effective ecosystem functioning in the aftermath of the drought and the development of mitigation measures to alleviate recurrent drought is critical. Enhanced drought monitoring and management options are required under existing environmental and socio‐economic setups in the 21st century. This article is characterized under: Science of Water > Water Extremes Engineering Water > Planning Water Water and Life > Stresses and Pressures on Ecosystems

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Section: Drought In the Human-modified Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Assessment Of Drought In the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

Drought: Progress in broadening its understanding

et al. 2019

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“…Some of the tested strategies have been assessed separately, as studies focused on either water demand (Low et al, 2015;Maggioni, 2015;Gonzales and Ajami, 2017;Hayden and Tsvetanov, 2019), adaptive water management (Thomas, 2019;White et al, 2019), or conjunctive use combined with managed aquifer recharge to increase drought resilience (Scanlon et al, 2016;Alam et al, 2020). Jaeger et al (2019) and Dobson et al (2020) show that combined drought policy interventions mitigated streamflow droughts by altering reservoir storage regulations and transfers. Results in this study agree with these findings showing reduced baseflow droughts in combined and separate drought management scenarios, but important differences are found between the tested hydrogeological conditions.…”

Section: Modelmentioning

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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“…All rights reserved has led to increased interest in better managing for water shortages. Jaeger et al (2019) showed that although substantial shortages still exist during extreme drought, dam operations can partially mitigate seasonal water shortages for human use and existing environmental flows. The Willamette Basin Review, a joint effort by the USACE and Oregon Water Resources Department to study WVP water reallocation for ecosystem and human uses, provided an additional impetus to revisit and potentially refine environmental flows for ESA listed species and the river ecosystem to support (USACE 2019).…”

Section: Author Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%