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| Titel |
Why is the Arkavathy River drying? A multiple-hypothesis approach in a data-scarce region |
| VerfasserIn |
V. Srinivasan, S. Thompson, K. Madhyastha, G. Penny, K. Jeremiah, S. Lele |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 19, no. 4 ; Nr. 19, no. 4 (2015-04-22), S.1905-1917 |
| Datensatznummer |
250120690
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-19-1905-2015.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
Water planning decisions are only as good as our ability to explain
historical trends and make reasonable predictions of future water
availability. But predicting water availability can be a challenge in rapidly
growing regions, where human modifications of land and waterscapes are
changing the hydrologic system. Yet, many regions of the world lack the
long-term hydrologic monitoring records needed to understand past changes and
predict future trends.
We investigated this "predictions under change" problem in the data-scarce
Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) catchment of the Arkavathy sub-basin in
southern
India. Inflows into TG Halli reservoir have declined sharply since the 1970s.
The causes of the drying are poorly understood, resulting in misdirected or
counter-productive management responses.
Five plausible hypotheses that could explain the decline were tested using
data from field surveys and secondary sources: (1) changes in rainfall amount,
seasonality and intensity; (2) increases in temperature; (3) groundwater
extraction; (4) expansion of eucalyptus plantations; and (5) fragmentation of
the river channel. Our results suggest that groundwater pumping, expansion of
eucalyptus plantations and, to a lesser extent, channel fragmentation are
much more likely to have caused the decline in surface flows in the TG Halli
catchment than changing climate.
The multiple-hypothesis approach presents a systematic way to quantify the
relative contributions of proximate anthropogenic and climate drivers to
hydrological change. The approach not only makes a meaningful contribution to
the policy debate but also helps prioritize and design future research. The
approach is a first step to conducting use-inspired socio-hydrologic research
in a watershed. |
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