Environ. Res. Lett. 7, 044022 (2012)

Climate change alters terrestrial water and energy budgets, with subsequent impacts on surface and groundwater resources. Conversely, local water management practices such as groundwater pumping and irrigation directly impact water storage, with subsequent effects on energy budgets.

Ian Ferguson from the Colorado School of Mines, USA, and Reed Maxwell from the US Bureau of Reclamation, USA, use an integrated hydrologic model to compare the effects of climate change and water management on the terrestrial water and energy budgets of a representative agricultural watershed in the semi-arid Southern Great Plains, USA.

Results show that the impacts of pumping and irrigation on latent heat flux, potential recharge and water-table depth are similar in magnitude to the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation. The authors note that these findings imply that many semi-arid basins where groundwater pumping and irrigation occurs may already be experiencing impacts on surface- and ground-water resources similar to those expected under a warming climate.