GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L09402, doi:10.

1029/2012GL051230, 2012

Past and future contribution of global groundwater depletion

to sea-level rise
Yoshihide Wada,1 Ludovicus P. H. van Beek,1 Frederiek C. Sperna Weiland,2
Benjamin F. Chao,3 Yun-Hao Wu,3 and Marc F. P. Bierkens1,4
Received 3 February 2012; revised 15 March 2012; accepted 15 March 2012; published 8 May 2012.
[1] Recent studies suggest the increasing contribution of and wetlands, deforestation, and changes in soil moisture,
groundwater depletion to global sea-level rise. Groundwater permafrost and snow (i.e., natural water stores) [Sahagian
depletion has more than doubled during the last decades, et al., 1994a; Church et al., 2011]. Since its initial assess-
primarily due to increase in water demand, while the ment [Sahagian et al., 1994a] the contribution of terrestrial
increase in water impoundments behind dams has been water storage change to global sea-level variation has been
tapering off since the 1990s. As a result, the contribution of subject to much debate [Greuell, 1994; Chao, 1994;
groundwater depletion to sea-level rise is likely to dominate Rodenburg, 1994; Gornitz et al., 1994; Sahagian et al.,
over those of other terrestrial water sources in the coming 1994b]. Subsequent studies [Gornitz, 1995; Postel, 1999;
decades. Yet, no projections into the 21st century are available. Gornitz, 2000; Huntington, 2008; Milly et al., 2010; Church
Here we present a reconstruction of past groundwater et al., 2011] differ mostly in their assessment of the contri-
depletion and its contribution to global sea-level variation, bution of groundwater depletion, owing to differences in
as well as 21st century projections based on three combined methodology and degree of extrapolation [e.g., Konikow, 2011].
socio-economic and climate scenarios (SRES) with transient In the IPCC fourth assessment report [Intergovernmental
climate forcing from three General Circulation Models (GCMs). Panel on Climate Change, 2007], the contribution of non-
We validate and correct estimated groundwater depletion frozen terrestrial waters to sea-level variation is not included
with independent local and regional assessments, and place due to its perceived uncertainty and the assumption that
our results in context of other terrestrial water contributions negative contributions such as dam impoundment compen-
to sea-level variation. Our results show that the contribution sate for positive contributions (mainly from groundwater
of groundwater depletion to sea-level increased from depletion). However, recent work on global groundwater
0.035 (0.009) mm yr 1 in 1900 to 0.57 (0.09) mm yr 1 depletion [Wada et al., 2010; Konikow, 2011] suggests a
in 2000, and is projected to increase to 0.82 (0.13) mm rapid increase of this positive contribution to sea-level rise
yr 1 by the year 2050. We estimate the net contribution of during the last decade that warrants a re-appraisal of the
terrestrial sources to be negative of order 0.15 (0.09) mm contribution of terrestrial waters and in particular ground-
yr 1 over 1970–1990 as a result of dam impoundment. How- water depletion to projected 21st century sea-level change.
ever, we estimate this to become positive of order +0.25
(0.09) mm yr 1 over 1990–2000 due to increased ground- 2. Estimating Past Groundwater Depletion
water depletion and decreased dam building. We project the net
terrestrial contribution to increase to +0.87 (0.14) mm yr 1 by [3] We estimate groundwater depletion, defined as the per-
2050. As a result, the cumulative contribution will become sistent removal of groundwater from aquifer storage owing to
positive by 2015, offsetting dam impoundment (maximum abstraction, for the benchmark year 2000 at a 0.5 grid. We use
31  3.1 mm in 2010), and resulting in a total rise of a flux-based method, i.e., calculating the difference between
+31 (11) mm by 2050. Citation: Wada, Y., L. P. H. van Beek, grid-based groundwater recharge (natural recharge and return
F. C. Sperna Weiland, B. F. Chao, Y.-H. Wu, and M. F. P. Bierkens flow from irrigation as additional recharge) and groundwater
(2012), Past and future contribution of global groundwater depletion abstraction. Compared to volume-based methods that deter-
to sea-level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L09402, doi:10.1029/ mine groundwater depletion directly from groundwater level
2012GL051230. observations, groundwater modelling, land-subsidence or
GRACE gravity estimation [Rodell et al., 2009; Tiwari et al.,
2009; Famiglietti et al., 2011; Konikow, 2011; Scanlon et al.,
1. Introduction 2012], flux-based methods have the disadvantage that they
[2] Apart from changes in water stored in glaciers, ice do not take into account increased capture due to decreased
caps and ice sheets, the terrestrial water contribution to sea- groundwater discharge and increased recharge from surface
level variation include groundwater depletion, water waters. However, volume-based assessments are only avail-
impoundments behind dams, storage loss of endorheic lakes able for a limited number of aquifers and regions in the world,
such that global estimates can be obtained only through
1
extrapolation under assumptions, such as fixed depletion to
Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, abstraction ratios [Konikow, 2011], that are difficult to verify.
Netherlands.
2
Deltares, Delft, Netherlands.
[4] We retrieved country-based groundwater abstraction
3
Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. rates for the benchmark year 2000 from the IGRAC GGIS
4
Unit Soil and Groundwater Systems, Deltares, Utrecht, Netherlands. data base (http://www.un-igrac.org/). To estimate country-
based groundwater abstraction for the years 1900–2000, we
Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union. then assumed this to increase in proportion to country net
0094-8276/12/2012GL051230

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L09402 WADA ET AL.: PAST AND FUTURE GROUNDWATER DEPLETION L09402

Figure 1. Comparison of corrected groundwater depletion estimates to independent estimates per region [Sahagian et al.,
1994a; McGuire, 2003; Foster and Loucks, 2006; Konikow, 2011; Rodell et al., 2009; Tiwari et al., 2009; Famiglietti et al.,
2011]. A general multiplicative correction factor was applied to the original estimates for non-arid regions (see also
Figure S3–S5 in Text S1). Error bars show standard deviation (s.d.) for each region. Abbreviations used: ACP: Atlantic
Coastal Plain; CCV: Central Valley, California; DCBAs: Deep Confined Bedrock Aquifers; GCP: Gulf Coastal Plain;
HPA: High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer; NAS: Nubian Aquifer System; NIAAs: Northern India and Adjacent Areas; NCP:
North China Plain; NWSAS: North Western Sahara Aquifer System; RPH: Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana; WUABs: Western
USA Alluvial Basins; WVSs: Western Volcanic Systems. Countries are identified by their ISO country codes. The dashed
line represents the 1:1 slope.

total water demand (see Figure S1 in Text S1 in the auxiliary shows good agreement (see Figure S4 in Text S1). Our
material for validation of this assumption).1 Next, we cal- method, however, slightly overestimates reported depletion
culated grid-based (0.5 ) estimates of groundwater abstrac- for the non-arid areas of the world, which we attribute to
tion by downscaling country-based groundwater abstraction increased capture due to enhanced recharge from surface
rates, using the difference between surface freshwater water. To remediate this overestimation, we applied a gen-
availability and net total water demand as proxy. Compari- eral multiplicative correction factor for these regions (see
son of the resulting abstraction maps with reported county auxiliary material). After tuning, Figure 1 compares our
abstractions for the U.S. shows that this downscaling method corrected estimates with those from other studies, now
performs well (see Figure S2 in Text S1). We refer to Wada showing excellent agreement. It should be noted that a
et al. [2011a, 2011b, 2012] and the auxiliary material for recent study by Shamsudduha et al. [2012] with ground-
details on the calculation of global surface water availability based observations showed that groundwater depletion
and net total water demand. estimates for the humid tropics (e.g., Bangladesh) derived
[5] The difference between grid-based groundwater recharge from GRACE satellite data might be subject to large
(natural recharge and return flow from irrigation as addi- uncertainties. Yet, most of the depletion occurs in (semi-)
tional recharge) and abstraction yielded an estimate of arid regions (e.g., North West India and North East Pakistan).
groundwater depletion. An uncertainty analysis of simulated Based on the corrected depletion rates (see Figure S5 and
groundwater recharge, estimated groundwater abstraction S6 in Text S1), we estimate a global depletion rate of
and resulting groundwater depletion were performed 204 (30) km3 yr 1 for the year 2000, equivalent to a sea-
according to Wada et al. [2010] (see also auxiliary mate- level rise of 0.57 (0.09) mm yr 1. We applied the same
rial). To validate our estimates for groundwater depletion, correction to past estimates and future projections.
we compared these for the year 2000 with independent,
mostly volume-based, estimates from different regions 3. Projecting 21st Century Groundwater
between 1990 and 2010 [Sahagian et al., 1994a; McGuire, Depletion
2003; Foster and Loucks, 2006; Konikow, 2011; Rodell
et al., 2009; Tiwari et al., 2009; Famiglietti et al., 2011]. [6] We projected future groundwater depletion into the
Although the timeframe for the comparison is limited and 21st century using socio-economic projections from three
does not exactly correspond to one another, it generally IPCC SRES scenarios (A1b, A2, B1) and bias-corrected
meteorological forcing from General Circulation Models
1
(GCMs). For each scenario, we used country and regional
Auxiliary materials are available in the HTML. doi:10.1029/
2012GL051230.
data on projected socio-economic development and land use

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L09402 WADA ET AL.: PAST AND FUTURE GROUNDWATER DEPLETION L09402

Figure 2. Time series of the estimated and projected contribution of groundwater depletion (GWD) to global sea-level
(GSL) over the period 1900–2100. Projections are based on three scenarios (A1B, A2, B1) with three different GCMs
(ECHAM5, HadGEM1, HadGEM2) (five projections in total). Error bars show standard deviation (s.d.) for each scenario
projection from each GCM. GCM meteorological outputs were bias-corrected on a grid-by-grid basis (0.5 ).

retrieved from the IPCC SRES scenarios data portal (http:// was bias-corrected on a grid-by-grid basis for mean monthly
www.ipcc-data.org/) and corresponding population data temperature, precipitation amount and number of wet days
from Gaffin et al. [2004]. Associated climate forcing was by scaling the long-term monthly means of the GCM daily
obtained for the period 1951–2100 from transient runs at fields to those of the CRU TS 2.1 data set [Mitchell and
daily time step of the following GCMs: ECHAM5 (A1b, A2, Jones, 2005] for the overlapping reference climate 1961–
B1), HadGEM1 (A2) and HadGEM 2 (A1b). We selected 1990 (see auxiliary material). The resulting bias-corrected
these GCMs based on the availability of transient daily cli- transient climate fields were used to force the global
mate data (i.e., precipitation and temperature). GCM output hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB [van Beek et al., 2011]

Table 1. Global Sea-Level Budget With the Estimates of Konikow [2011] Compared With Those of This Study for Groundwater
Depletion (Our Estimates in Bold) for Two Different Time Intervals (1972–2008 and 1993–2008) in mm yr 1a
Component (mm yr 1) 1972–2008 1993–2008
Observed
Total sea-level rise (t.g.) 1.83  0.18 2.61  0.55
Total sea-level rise (t.g. + sat) 2.10  0.16 3.22  0.41

Estimated
1
Component (mm yr ) Reference 1972–2008 1993–2008
Thermal expansion (full depth) Church et al. [2011] 0.80  0.15 0.88  0.33
Land ice (glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets) Church et al. [2011] 1.09  0.26 1.73  0.27
Groundwater depletion Konikow [2011] 0.26  0.07 0.35  0.07
This study 0.42  0.08 0.54  0.09
Terrestrial storage change Church et al. [2011] 0.11  0.19 0.08  0.19
This study 0.05  0.20 0.10  0.20
Total sea-level rise Church et al. [2011] 1.78  0.36 2.54  0.46
This study 1.94  0.36 2.71  0.47

Observed – Estimated
Residual (t.g.) Church et al. [2011] 0.05  0.40 0.08  0.72
This study 0.11  0.40 0.10  0.72
Residual (t.g. + sat) Church et al. [2011] 0.32  0.39 0.69  0.62
This study 0.16  0.39 0.51  0.62
a
Estimated sea-level rates were compared with observed rates from the reconstructed tide-gauge data (t.g.) and from joining the altimeter data to the
reconstructed data in 1993 (t.g. + sat). The observed and estimated sea-level budgets were taken from Church et al. [2011]. Dam retention (i.e., water
impoundments behind dams) and natural terrestrial storage remain the same as those from Church et al. [2011] for the comparison.

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Figure 3. Time series of the estimated and projected (a) annual contribution of terrestrial water storage change to global
sea-level over the period 1900–2100 (rates in mm yr 1) and (b) cumulative contribution of terrestrial water storage change
to global sea-level over the period 1900–2100 (in mm). To estimate the mean and standard deviation over the ensemble of
the five groundwater depletion projections, we used the mean and standard deviation from each projection as parameters in
an assumed Gaussian distribution, and drew 2000 (Monte Carlo) realizations for each projection. We subsequently calcu-
lated the mean and standard deviation from the resulting 10000 realizations (five projections in total). GWD (groundwater
depletion) total uncertainty band (light blue) was taken from the maximum and minimum uncertainty range of past estimates
(1900–2000) and five projections (2001–2100) for each year.

for 2001–2100. As for the period 1900–2000, we assumed evaporative demand over irrigated areas following increased
country-based groundwater abstraction to change in pro- temperatures. Beyond the year 2050, average depletion
portion to corresponding country net total water demand increases even further (see also Animation S1 in the auxiliary
over the projected period. material), but differences between scenarios become very
large. Also, projections of groundwater depletion too far into
4. Results: Past and Future Global the 21st century become progressively more hypothetical as
Groundwater Depletion groundwater may either become unattainable, e.g., in deep
alluvial aquifers, or fully depleted, e.g., in hard rock aquifers
[7] During the 20th century, the contribution of ground- of limited porosity.
water depletion to global sea level increased from [8] Church et al. [2011] recently reviewed sea-level
0.035 (0.009) mm yr 1 in 1900 to 0.57 (0.09) mm yr 1 change from all sources (thermal expansion, Antarctic and
in 2000, and is projected to increase to 0.82 (0.13) mm Greenland ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers, and terrestrial
yr 1 by year 2050 (see Figure 2). The increase from 1900 to water storage) and compared the total reconstructed signal to
2000 is primarily driven by increased water demand, while estimates of sea-level rise for the periods 1972–2008 and
the projected increase from 2001 to 2050 is mostly climate- 1993–2008 from tide gauges (t.g.) and a combination of tide
driven, arising from decreased surface water availability gauges and satellite observations (t.g. + sat) (see Table 1).
and groundwater recharge in combination with larger We substituted our estimates for groundwater depletion into

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L09402 WADA ET AL.: PAST AND FUTURE GROUNDWATER DEPLETION L09402

this global sea-level budget instead of the estimates taken [11] We note that our estimates and projections are
from Konikow [2011]. The results generally show similar inherently uncertain, as a result of the data and methods used
residuals, although the residuals are slightly smaller for t.g. + and the imposed scenarios of climate and socio-economic
sat when using our estimates. It should be noted that the development as depicted by the estimated uncertainty bands
recent study by Jacob et al. [2012] using GRACE satellite (Figure 3a). A series of assumptions were employed to
data estimates a smaller contribution of glaciers and ice caps overcome the lack of input data (see auxiliary material).
to sea-level rise (0.41  0.08 mm yr 1 over the period Notwithstanding, our results compare well with independent
2003–2010) compared to the estimate used in Church et al. estimates for the present groundwater depletion rates
[2011] (0.99  0.04 mm yr 1 over the period 1993–2008). (Figure 1) and show that groundwater depletion is likely to
Although the timeframes differ, using the estimate by Jacob be the major component of terrestrial contribution to sea-
et al. [2012] results in a larger residual between observed level change in the coming decades.
and estimated total sea-level rise.
[12] Acknowledgments. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers
for their constructive comments and thoughtful suggestions, which substan-
5. Results: Groundwater Depletion tially helped to improve the quality of this manuscript. We are also thankful
Among Other Terrestrial Sources to Jac van der Gun for sharing his thoughts on the estimation of groundwater
depletion and to Yi-Hsiang Li for helping us to obtain the global reservoir
[9] We also placed our reconstructed and projected con- data. This study benefited greatly from the availability of invaluable data sets
tributions to global sea level rise in the context of other as acknowledged in the references and auxiliary material. This study was
financially supported by Research Focus Earth and Sustainability of Utrecht
terrestrial sources. We included and extrapolated impound- University (Project FM0906: Global Assessment of Water Resources).
ment by dam building, deforestation, wetland loss and stor- [13] The Editor thanks two anonymous reviewers for assisting in the
age change in endorheic basins and lakes. We did not evaluation of this paper.
include natural terrestrial storage change (e.g., soil moisture,
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