Abstract
The response of potential evapotranspiration (ET0) to widespread irrigation is important to fully understand future regional climate changes and to infer adaptive management of agricultural water resources. The quantitative impact of irrigation on ET0 from 1960 to 2013 was evaluated using historical time series data of daily meteorological observations in the hyper-arid region of northwest China. The decreasing trends in ET0 were accelerated for meteorological stations in regions with oasis agriculture, especially in the summer and during the growing season. Irrigation led to a cooling effect on temperature, increased relative humidity and precipitation. All of these changes contributed to a larger decrease of ET0 trend. The findings of this study advance our insight into the effects of irrigation on dynamics in ET0 and meteorological factors. Further investigations to understand how ET0 responds to climate change and agricultural irrigation could provide guidance for determining effective measures of water resources for adapting to global change.
Highlights
Over the last 50 years, human activities have dramatically altered the physical properties of the land surface by modifying the natural vegetation coverage [1,2]
The results indicated that 17 stations were classified into the agricultural group, 7 stations into the desert group and 7 stations into the natural group
This study evaluated the trends in ET0 and the main meteorological factors under different irrigation activity levels (1960–2013) in the hyper-arid region of northwest China
Summary
Over the last 50 years, human activities have dramatically altered the physical properties of the land surface by modifying the natural vegetation coverage [1,2]. Land use changes have a strong influence on local hydrological processes and affect regional and global climate change [3,4,5]. Irrigation and climate change are altering the exchange of energy and heat, as well as moisture transportation, with subsequent impacts on air temperature patterns, the hydrological cycle and changes of CO2 concentrations between the atmosphere and the land surface [9,10]. ET0, as the theoretical upper limit of evapotranspiration (ET), is a vital component of water and energy budgets [11]. It is the water transferred from land to the atmosphere and reflects the interactions of the two surfaces. Irrigation is one important anthropogenic process that can affect local to regional climate and hydrology [13,14]
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