Sustainable Groundwater Management in the Arid Southwestern US: Coachella Valley, California

Sustainable groundwater management requires approaches to assess the influence of climate and management actions on the evolution of groundwater systems. Traditional approaches that apply continuity to assess groundwater sustainability fail to capture the spatial variability of aquifer responses. To address this gap, our study evaluates groundwater elevation data from the Coachella Valley, California, within a groundwater sustainability framework given the adoption of integrative management strategies in the valley. Our study details an innovative approach employing traditional statistical methods to improve understanding of aquifer responses. In this analysis, we evaluate trends at individual groundwater observation wells and regional groundwater behaviors using field significance. Regional elevation trends identified no significant trends during periods of intense groundwater replenishment, active since 1973, despite spatial variability in individual well trends. Our results illustrate the spatially limited effects of groundwater replenishment occur against a setting of long-term groundwater depletion, raising concerns over the definition of sustainable groundwater management in aquifer systems employing integrative management strategies.

[1]  J. Brandt,et al.  Land subsidence along the Delta-Mendota Canal in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, 2003-10 , 2013 .

[2]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  Groundwater depletion during drought threatens future water security of the Colorado River Basin , 2014, Geophysical research letters.

[3]  F. Amelung,et al.  Detection and measurement of land subsidence using Global Positioning System and interferometric synthetic aperture radar, Coachella Valley, California, 1996-98 , 2001 .

[4]  Anders Grimvall,et al.  Roadmap for assessing regional trends in groundwater quality , 2010, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[5]  Michel Lang,et al.  Regional methods for trend detection: Assessing field significance and regional consistency , 2008 .

[6]  Richard M. Vogel,et al.  Trends in floods and low flows in the United States: impact of spatial correlation , 2000 .

[7]  S. Swenson,et al.  Satellites measure recent rates of groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley , 2011 .

[8]  J. F. Poland,et al.  Glossary of selected terms useful in studies of the mechanics of aquifer systems and land subsidence due to fluid withdrawal , 1972 .

[9]  H. B. Mann.  Nonparametric Tests Against Trend , 1945 .

[10]  Hans von Storch,et al.  Misuses of Statistical Analysis in Climate Research , 1995 .

[11]  John Bredehoeft,et al.  Safe Yield and the Water Budget Myth , 1997 .

[12]  M. Jha,et al.  Characterizing rainfall–groundwater dynamics in a hard‐rock aquifer system using time series, geographic information system and geostatistical modelling , 2014 .

[13]  Leonard F. Konikow,et al.  Groundwater Depletion in the United States (1900?2008) , 2014 .

[14]  S. Yue,et al.  Canadian streamflow trend detection: impacts of serial and cross-correlation , 2003 .

[15]  David W. Pierce,et al.  Future dryness in the southwest US and the hydrology of the early 21st century drought , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[16]  I. T. Jolliffe,et al.  Analysis of Climate Variability. Applications of Statistical Techniques , 1997 .

[17]  Charles H. Lee.  The Determination of Safe Yield of Underground Reservoirs of the Closed-Basin Type , 2010 .

[18]  Marios Sophocleous,et al.  From safe yield to sustainable development of water resources—the Kansas experience , 2000 .

[19]  W. C. Mendenhall.  Ground waters of the Indio region, California, with a sketch of the Colorado desert , 1909 .

[20]  S. Yue,et al.  The Mann-Kendall Test Modified by Effective Sample Size to Detect Trend in Serially Correlated Hydrological Series , 2004 .

[21]  Charles H. Lee.  Closure of "The Determination of Safe Yields of Underground Reservoirs of the Closedbasin Type" , 1915 .

[22]  H. Broers,et al.  Regional monitoring of temporal changes in groundwater quality , 2004 .

[23]  J. Barkoulas,et al.  Econometric Methods I , 2015 .

[24]  A. Kawamura,et al.  Aquifer system for potential groundwater resources in Hanoi, Vietnam , 2012 .

[25]  M. Taniguchi,et al.  Towards Sustainable Groundwater Use: Setting Long‐Term Goals, Backcasting, and Managing Adaptively , 2012, Ground water.

[26]  S. Jena,et al.  The influence of drought and anthropogenic effects on groundwater levels in Orissa, India , 2007 .

[27]  L. A. Swain,et al.  Predicted water-level and water-quality effects of artificial recharge in the Upper Coachella Valley, California, using a finite-element digital model , 1978 .

[28]  M. Kendall.  Rank Correlation Methods , 1949 .

[29]  David W. Pierce,et al.  Sustainable water deliveries from the Colorado River in a changing climate , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[30]  Stanley A Leake,et al.  The Journey from Safe Yield to Sustainability , 2004, Ground water.

[31]  G. Hodgkins,et al.  Historical Groundwater Trends in Northern New England and Relations with Streamflow and Climatic Variables , 2013 .

[32]  Rami Mansour,et al.  Trends and Variability in Extreme Rainfall Events in British Columbia , 2011 .

[33]  Nicola Fohrer,et al.  Streamflow Trends and Climate Variability Impacts in Poyang Lake Basin, China , 2010 .

[34]  R. G. Perry,et al.  Groundwater abstraction impacts on spring flow and base flow in the Hillsborough River Basin, Florida, USA , 2006 .

[35]  The water budget myth revisited: why hydrogeologists model. , 2002, Ground water.

[36]  Daniel Hillel,et al.  Groundwater recharge in arid regions: Review and critique of estimation methods , 1988 .

[37]  C. Cunnane.  Unbiased plotting positions — A review , 1978 .

[38]  Phoebe Koundouri,et al.  Current Issues in the Economics of Groundwater Resource Management , 2004 .

[39]  Michelle Sneed,et al.  Detection and Measurement of Land Subsidence Using Global Positioning System Surveying and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, Coachella Valley, California, 1996-2005 , 2007 .

[40]  L. Zaharia,et al.  Seasonal trends in Romanian streamflow , 2014 .

[41]  T. Reilly,et al.  Flow and Storage in Groundwater Systems , 2002, Science.

[42]  Sangam Shrestha,et al.  A framework for measuring groundwater sustainability , 2011 .

[43]  E. G. Reichard,et al.  Evaluation of a ground-water flow and transport model of the upper Coachella Valley, California , 1992 .

[44]  Evaluation of correlations between precipitation, groundwater fluctuations, and lake level fluctuations using spectral methods (Wisconsin, USA) , 2011 .

[45]  J. Famiglietti.  The global groundwater crisis , 2014 .

[46]  David Hinkley,et al.  Bootstrap Methods: Another Look at the Jackknife , 2008 .

[47]  C. Faunt,et al.  Groundwater availability of the Central Valley Aquifer, California , 2009 .

[48]  M. Bierkens,et al.  Global depletion of groundwater resources , 2010 .

[49]  A. Jemain,et al.  Spatial trends of dry spells over Peninsular Malaysia during monsoon seasons , 2009 .

[50]  Vincent R. Gray.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers , 2007 .

[51]  N. Cressie.  The origins of kriging , 1990 .

[52]  F. Anctil,et al.  Groundwater recharge trends in CanadaGeological Survey of Canada Contribution 20090009. , 2009 .

[53]  M. Bayazit,et al.  To prewhiten or not to prewhiten in trend analysis? , 2007 .

[54]  P. Younger.  Water in the balance , 2013 .

[55]  S. J. Tyley.  Analog model study of the ground-water basin of the Upper Coachella Valley, California , 1971 .

[56]  Dingfang Li,et al.  Temporal Change Analysis Based on Data Characteristics and Nonparametric Test , 2013, Water Resources Management.

[57]  Yangxiao Zhou,et al.  A critical review of groundwater budget myth, safe yield and sustainability , 2009 .

[58]  J. R. Wallis,et al.  Hydro-Climatological Trends in the Continental United States, 1948-88 , 1994 .

[59]  A. Samal,et al.  Trend Analysis of Streamflow Drought Events in Nebraska , 2008 .

[60]  T. Ouarda,et al.  Identification of hydrological trends in the presence of serial and cross correlations: A review of selected methods and their application to annual flow regimes of Canadian rivers , 2009 .

[61]  W. Kinzelbach,et al.  What can we learn from long-term groundwater data to improve climate change impact studies? , 2011 .

[62]  M. Rodell,et al.  Water in the Balance , 2013, Science.

[63]  Safar Marofi,et al.  Trend Analysis in Reference Evapotranspiration Using Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s Rho Tests in Arid Regions of Iran , 2011, Water Resources Management.

[64]  H. Storch,et al.  Analysis of Climate Variability , 1995 .

[65]  B. Efron.  Bootstrap Methods: Another Look at the Jackknife , 1979 .

[66]  M. Rodell,et al.  Possible link between irrigation in the U.S. High Plains and increased summer streamflow in the Midwest , 2011 .