Harsh Anurag, Ph.D. (Minnesota) coauthored a paper entitled “Assessing Future Climate Change Impacts on Groundwater Recharge in Minnesota” that was published in the Journal of Hydrology in Volume 612 in September 2022.

Harsh was the lead author and his coauthor was G.-H. Crystal Ng.

Harsh Anurag is a Senior Staff Professional based in Geosyntec’s Minneapolis, Minnesota office, specializing in hydrologic modeling. As part of his research focus, he analyzed future recharge trends in Minnesota using Global Climate Model (GCM) climate projection data and the role played by seasonally frozen ground in influencing recharge. Another research focus was to use statistical method (Ensemble Kalman Filter) to merge models with observations to provide more reliable and informative insights than is possible with either models or observations alone.

The Journal of Hydrology publishes original research papers and comprehensive reviews in all the subfields of the hydrological sciences, including water based management and policy issues that have economical and societal impact. These include, but are not limited to: the physical, chemical, biogeochemical, stochastic and systems aspects of surface and groundwater hydrology, hydrometeorology, hydrogeology and hydrogeophysics. Relevant topics incorporating the insights and methodologies of disciplines such as climatology, water resource systems, ecohydrology, geomorphology, soil science, instrumentation and remote sensing, data and information sciences, civil and environmental engineering are within scope. Multi- and inter-disciplinary analyses of hydrological problems are invited, specifically ones that broaden the understanding of hydrologic science through integration with social, economic, or behavioral sciences.

Abstract

Although the northern Laurentian Great Lakes region is projected to undergo major climate changes, it has had a paucity of future groundwater recharge studies. We used the state of Minnesota (USA) as a testbed to understand how recharge will respond to changing climate in upper mid-latitude, low-elevation temperate settings. Not only can this inform water resource management, but it can help probe difficult-to-predict sign changes in recharge in temperate zones, as well as the under-studied land-surface processes controlling them. Our study implemented the Community Land Model with ensemble outputs from five climate models under two emissions scenarios (RCP8.5 and RCP4.5) to investigate future changes in recharge for 2026–2055 relative to the baseline historical period of 1976–2005. We found that despite quite consistent projections of higher precipitation (P) and some local occurrences of increased recharge, state-average recharge will mostly decline or remain about the same due to warming-induced evapotranspiration (ET) increases. However, our simulations showed that several processes serve to buffer recharge decreases. In drier ecoregions in the west, soil moisture limitations start to constrain evapotranspiration, thus curbing reductions in recharge. These regions also include higher historical surface runoff due to its runoff-prone soils, and because much of future reductions in net atmospheric inputs (P-ET) are partitioned to lower this runoff instead of recharge, decreases in recharge are further modulated. Statewide warming also lessens frozen ground coverage, reapportioning early spring runoff of snowmelt to infiltration and recharge. Our results demonstrate that in addition to precipitation change and warming, moisture feedbacks on ET and the influence of hydrogeological properties and frozen ground dynamics on runoff must be considered when quantifying climate change impacts on recharge in temperate zones.

More Information

Learn more about the article: Assessing future climate change impacts on groundwater recharge in Minnesota – ScienceDirect
Learn more about the Journal of Hydrology: Journal of Hydrology | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
For consultation regarding climate change and groundwater, contact Harsh Anurag at harsh.anurag@geosyntec.com.
Learn more about Harsh at: Harsh Anurag | LinkedIn