Basin‐scale, integrated observations of the early 21st century multiyear drought in southeast Australia

[1] The Murray-Darling Basin in southeast Australia is experiencing one of the most severe droughts observed recently in the world, driven by several years of rainfall deficits and record high temperatures. This paper provides new basin-scale observations of the multiyear drought, integrated to a degree rarely achieved on such a large scale, to assess the response of water resources and the severity of the drought. A combination of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data with in situ and modeled hydrological data shows the propagation of the water deficit through the hydrological cycle and the rise of different types of drought. Our observations show the rapid drying of soil moisture and surface water storages, which reached near-stationary low levels only ∼2 years after the onset of the drought in 2001, with a loss of ∼80 and ∼12 km3 between January 2001 and January 2003, respectively. The multiyear drought has led to the almost complete drying of surface water resources which account for most of the water used for irrigation and domestic purposes. High correlation between observed groundwater variations and GRACE data substantiates the persistent reduction in groundwater storage, with groundwater levels still declining 6 years after the onset of the drought (groundwater loss of ∼104 km3 between 2001 and 2007). The hydrological drought continues even though the region returned to average annual rainfall during 2007.

[1]  Florent Lyard,et al.  Modeling the barotropic response of the global ocean to atmospheric wind and pressure forcing ‐ comparisons with observations , 2003 .

[2]  James L. Davis,et al.  Land water storage within the Congo Basin inferred from GRACE satellite gravity data , 2006 .

[3]  H. Lanen,et al.  Propagation and spatial distribution of drought in a groundwater catchment , 2006 .

[4]  E. Eltahir,et al.  On the asymmetric response of aquifer water level to floods and droughts in Illinois , 1999 .

[5]  S. Swenson,et al.  A comparison of terrestrial water storage variations from GRACE with in situ measurements from Illinois , 2006 .

[6]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  Estimating groundwater storage changes in the Mississippi River basin (USA) using GRACE , 2007 .

[7]  Frédéric Frappart,et al.  Time variations of land water storage from an inversion of 2 years of GRACE geoids , 2005 .

[8]  John A. Dracup,et al.  The Quantification of Drought: An Evaluation of Drought Indices , 2002 .

[9]  D. Wilhite,et al.  CHAPfER2UNDERSTANDING THE DROUGHT PHENOMENON:THE ROLE OF DEFINITIONS , 1985 .

[10]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Basin scale estimates of evapotranspiration using GRACE and other observations , 2004 .

[11]  S. P. Anderson,et al.  Glaciers Dominate Eustatic Sea-Level Rise in the 21st Century , 2007, Science.

[12]  Glen R. Walker,et al.  Land clearance and river salinisation in the western Murray Basin, Australia , 1990 .

[13]  I. Simmers.  Understanding Water in a Dry Environment: Hydrological Processes in Arid and Semi-Arid Zones , 2003 .

[14]  George M. Hornberger,et al.  Soil moisture variability across climate zones , 2007 .

[15]  P. Lipman.  Natural hazards , 1993, Nature.

[16]  Leduca,et al.  Long-term rise in a Sahelian water-table : the Continental Terminal in South-West Niger , 2002 .

[17]  H. V. Van Lanen,et al.  Propagation of drought through groundwater—a new approach using linear reservoir theory , 2003 .

[18]  Guillaume Ramillien,et al.  Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE , 2006 .

[19]  J. D. Tarpley,et al.  Implementation of Noah land surface model advances in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction operational mesoscale Eta model , 2003 .

[20]  O. Edenhofer,et al.  Mitigation from a cross-sectoral perspective , 2007 .

[21]  Xi Chen,et al.  Groundwater influences on soil moisture and surface evaporation , 2004 .

[22]  G. Ramillien,et al.  Global time-variations of hydrological signals from GRACE satellite gravimetry , 2004 .

[23]  Jean-Charles Marty,et al.  Temporal gravity field models inferred from GRACE data , 2007 .

[24]  C. Provost,et al.  A hydrodynamic ocean tide model improved by assimilating a satellite altimeter-derived data set , 1998 .

[25]  Melanie J. B. Zeppel,et al.  Groundwater-dependent ecosystems in Australia: It's more than just water for rivers , 2003 .

[26]  Ying Fan,et al.  Incorporating water table dynamics in climate modeling: 2. Formulation, validation, and soil moisture simulation , 2007 .

[27]  L. Tallaksen,et al.  Hydrological drought : processes and estimation methods for streamflow and groundwater , 2004 .

[28]  Guillaume Favreau,et al.  Land clearance and hydrological change in the Sahel: SW Niger , 2008 .

[29]  Zong-Liang Yang,et al.  Development of a simple groundwater model for use in climate models and evaluation with Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment data , 2007 .

[30]  B. Timbal,et al.  Future projections of winter rainfall in southeast Australia using a statistical downscaling technique , 2008 .

[31]  G. Favreau,et al.  Long-term rise in a Sahelian water-table: the Continental Terminal in South-West Niger , 2001 .

[32]  B. Timbal,et al.  A review of recent climate variability and climate change in southeastern Australia , 2008 .

[33]  Victor Zlotnicki,et al.  Time‐variable gravity from GRACE: First results , 2004 .

[34]  T. McMahon,et al.  Droughts and anti‐droughts: the low flow hydrology of Australian rivers , 2003 .

[35]  Jeffrey P. Walker,et al.  A framework for assessing the potential of remote-sensed gravity to provide new insight on the hydrology of the Murray-Darling Basin , 2006 .

[36]  Brad R. Murray,et al.  A functional methodology for determining the groundwater regime needed to maintain the health of groundwater-dependent vegetation , 2006 .

[37]  R. Stouffer,et al.  Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management? , 2008, Science.

[38]  R. Heim,et al.  Drought indices: a review. , 2000 .

[39]  R. Grayson,et al.  Testing in‐class variability of groundwater systems: local upland systems , 2003 .

[40]  S. Solomon.  The Physical Science Basis : Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2007 .

[41]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  Detectability of variations in continental water storage from satellite observations of the time dependent gravity field , 1999 .

[42]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  Analysis of terrestrial water storage changes from GRACE and GLDAS , 2008 .

[43]  Petra Döll,et al.  GRACE observations of changes in continental water storage , 2006 .

[44]  J. Dracup,et al.  An aggregate drought index: Assessing drought severity based on fluctuations in the hydrologic cycle and surface water storage , 2004 .

[45]  Jeffrey P. Walker,et al.  THE GLOBAL LAND DATA ASSIMILATION SYSTEM , 2004 .

[46]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Comparison of seasonal terrestrial water storage variations from GRACE with groundwater‐level measurements from the High Plains Aquifer (USA) , 2007 .

[47]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  GRACE‐derived terrestrial water storage depletion associated with the 2003 European heat wave , 2005 .

[48]  D. L. Peck,et al.  Specific Yield Compilation of Specific Yields for Various Materials , 1967 .

[49]  Regional terrestrial water storage change and evapotranspiration from terrestrial and atmospheric water balance computations , 2008 .

[50]  W. Edmunds,et al.  Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6335 Global synthesis of groundwater recharge in semiarid andaridregions , 2022 .

[51]  Donald A. Wilhite,et al.  Drought : a global assessment , 2000 .

[52]  Michael P. Bange,et al.  Risk Management Strategies Using Seasonal Climate Forecasting in Irrigated Cotton Production: A Tale of Stochastic Dominance , 2004 .