Spatio-temporal analysis of groundwater-dependent precipitation based on Lagrangian moisture tracking

Abstract: Groundwater abstraction for irrigation use has steadily increased over the past decades, resulting in additional evaporation to the atmosphere, and increased precipitation. The precipitation stemming from groundwater irrigation (or Groundwater-dependent precipitation) has received little attention during recent years and is solely researched by the Eulerian model. This study aims to provide a supplement and improvement of the global fate of groundwater-dependent precipitation with the Lagrangian model outcome. The analysis combines the UTrack model output between 2008 to 2017, a global groundwater irrigation area map, groundwater abstraction from PCR-GLOBWB version 1, and groundwater irrigation efficiency to generate the global groundwater-dependent precipitation trajectory from 2001 to 2010. The primary assumption is that atmospheric factors do not change significantly in all pressure levels during 2001 – 2010 and 2008 – 2017. The simulation result shows that groundwater-dependent precipitation is generally more substantial in Asia than in other continents. Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Yemen, and Afghanistan are the top six countries receiving high groundwater-dependent precipitation contributions monthly and yearly. Moreover, groundwater-dependent precipitation in the continent and country shows a significant seasonal change in the monthly average. A country or continent with a high groundwater abstraction does not necessarily receive a massive amount of groundwater-dependent precipitation regardless of monthly and yearly scale. For instance, China has a yearly average groundwater abstraction of 100 km3 year-1 but receives less than 1% groundwater-dependent precipitation contribution per year. Approximately 75% of groundwater-dependent precipitation falls into the land, and 25% ends in the ocean from 2001 to 2010. The groundwater-dependent precipitation does not significantly contribute to land and ocean, with 0.16% and 0.015%, respectively. Consequently, the study suggests groundwater-dependent precipitation does not have a greater effect on downwind area precipitation on a yearly scale but a larger effect during a specific month. The highest monthly average groundwater-dependent contribution is 18% in January, whereas the highest yearly groundwater-dependent contribution is 2.5% in 2006. Major regions with high groundwater-dependent precipitation contributions are found along the Himalayas Range from January to April and moving eastward to Arabic Peninsula in July.