The standard suite of indicators currently used in operational drought monitoring reflects anomalous conditions in several major components of the hydrologic budget—representing deficits in precipitation, soil moisture content, runoff, surface and groundwater storage, snowpack, and streamflow. In principle, it is useful to have a diversity of indices because drought can assume many forms (meteo...

year. Other than continued replenishment of aquifers in the southeast, Australia reversed course from 2010, becoming wetter in the west and dryer in the northeast. Drought in equatorial Africa and recovery from drought in the Indochinese peninsula also stand out. Aquifers in central California (Famiglietti et al. 2011) and northern India (Rodell et al. 2009; Tiwari et al. 2009), which are stres...

1. Throughout arid regions of the world, groundwater is extracted for human population centres. In the Great Basin and Range region of the USA, we lack basic information regarding some plant communities detailing the extent to which vegetation is threatened by groundwater extraction. This is particularly true for alkali meadow vegetation, which is restricted to zones of shallow groundwater yet ...

Over the past four decades, land use/land cover (LU/LC) change, coupled with persistent drought, has resulted in the decline of groundwater levels in Horqin Sandy Land. Accordingly, this study quantifies changes in LU/LC and groundwater storage (GWS). Furthermore, it investigates the effects of LU/LC changes on GWS. GWS changes are estimated using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)...

Drought is one of the most damaging climaterelated hazards to impact societies. Although drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon throughout most parts of the world, its effects have tremendous consequences for the physical, economic, social, and political elements of our environment. Droughts impact both surface and groundwater resources and can lead to reductions in water supply, diminishe...

Cottonwood (Populus spp.) forests are conspicuous and functionally important elements of riparian vegetation throughout much of the western U.S. Understanding how transpiration by this vegetation type responds to environmental forcing is important for determining the water balance dynamics of riparian ecosystems threatened by groundwater depletion. Transpiration was measured in semiarid riparia...

Seasonal climate prediction offers potentially useful information for water managers. However, implementing forecast information is challenging due to the probabilistic nature of forecasts and limited demonstrations of usefulness. In this study, an adaptive groundwater pricing model utilizing operational seasonal climate forecasts was evaluated for groundwater management. The price for groundwa...