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Changes in moisture and energy fluxes due to agricultural land use and irrigation in the Indian Monsoon Belt
Author(s) -
Douglas Ellen M.,
Niyogi Dev,
Frolking S.,
Yeluripati J. B.,
Pielke Roger A.,
Niyogi Nivedita,
Vörösmarty C. J.,
Mohanty U. C.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2006gl026550
Subject(s) - environmental science , irrigation , transpiration , monsoon , latent heat , sensible heat , agriculture , land cover , dry season , hydrology (agriculture) , eddy covariance , atmospheric sciences , land use , climatology , geography , agronomy , ecosystem , meteorology , geology , photosynthesis , ecology , chemistry , geotechnical engineering , cartography , archaeology , biology , biochemistry
We present a conceptual synthesis of the impact that agricultural activity in India can have on land‐atmosphere interactions through irrigation. We illustrate a “bottom up” approach to evaluate the effects of land use change on both physical processes and human vulnerability. We compared vapor fluxes (estimated evaporation and transpiration) from a pre‐agricultural and a contemporary land cover and found that mean annual vapor fluxes have increased by 17% (340 km 3 ) with a 7% increase (117 km 3 ) in the wet season and a 55% increase (223 km 3 ) in the dry season. Two thirds of this increase was attributed to irrigation, with groundwater‐based irrigation contributing 14% and 35% of the vapor fluxes in the wet and dry seasons, respectively. The area averaged change in latent heat flux across India was estimated to be 9 Wm −2 . The largest increases occurred where both cropland and irrigated lands were the predominant contemporary land uses.