Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Understanding water availability and its response to climate change and water extraction is crucial for sustainable water management in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin. This study introduces a space-based method that quantifies the natural and human-induced impact on changes in terrestrial water storage. It reveals an impact of 17% due to water extraction for irrigation over the past two decades, with 84% of this extraction coming from surface water and 16% from groundwater. The human-induced impact varies spatially with higher values in the southern Murray (up to 5.6%) and smaller values in the northern Darling (down to 0.2%). Data-model fusion of the satellite-based water storage changes into a hydrological model, which does not simulate water extraction, man-made reservoirs and wetlands, improved the representation of water storage variability and intensified trends in drying and wetting periods. This study adds valuable findings to better understand natural and human-induced impacts on the regional water resources under changing climate and to better represent these impacts (80% and 20% respectively) within hydrological models after data-model fusion.
Source: Scientific Reports
Institutions: Aalborg University, Australian National University
Language: English
Subfield: Oceanography
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Awards: G1162065101, G2275312137
OpenAlex ID: W4410760898