Projections of 5 coupled scenarios of land-use change and groundwater sustainability for California's Central Coast (2001-2061) - LUCAS-W model
Couplings between land-use development and groundwater sustainability determine long-term resilience of water supplies
Dates
Publication Date
2021-06-24
Start Date
2001
End Date
2061
Repository Created
2021-03-05
Citation
Van Schmidt, N.D., Wilson, T.S., and Langridge, R., 2021, Projections of 5 coupled scenarios of land-use change and groundwater sustainability for California's Central Coast (2001-2061) - LUCAS-W model: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9209XW4.
Summary
LUCAS-W is a scenario-based simulation model of coupled land use change and associated water demand for California's Central Coast region from 2001-2061. The model is a verison of the LUCAS model, which uses the SyncroSim software framework (Software documentation available at http://doc.syncrosim.com/index.php?title=Reference_Guide), that contains a new coupling with statistical software R (https://www.r-project.org/) to enable dynamic feedbacks between land-use change, resulting water demand, and water availability. The model was parameterized with land-use change and water use empirically estimated from county-scale historic data, as well as results from dozens of local agencies’ groundwater modeling efforts. It was used to assess [...]
Summary
LUCAS-W is a scenario-based simulation model of coupled land use change and associated water demand for California's Central Coast region from 2001-2061. The model is a verison of the LUCAS model, which uses the SyncroSim software framework (Software documentation available at http://doc.syncrosim.com/index.php?title=Reference_Guide), that contains a new coupling with statistical software R (https://www.r-project.org/) to enable dynamic feedbacks between land-use change, resulting water demand, and water availability. The model was parameterized with land-use change and water use empirically estimated from county-scale historic data, as well as results from dozens of local agencies’ groundwater modeling efforts. It was used to assess a set of five stakeholder-driven scenarios that explored alternative development pathways assuming the continuation of historic land use change rates but with different intensities of water supply and land-use management. Water management strategies were (1) water demand limits, and (2) water supply enhancement, while land use management strategies were (3) urban sprawl limits on recharge areas and prime farmland, and (4) preservation of priority habitat areas. By scaling up studies of local-scale diverse, heterogeneous aquifers and management approaches to a regional level, the model can enable a projection of spatial changes due to shifts in LULC and water management including leakage from land and water use regulated areas into unregulated areas, information that is key to future agency planning for sustainability. The resulting land-use projections provide a range of development projections under different sets of management assumptions: patterns of development that do not stabilize “business-as-usual” (WL), assume that water demand stabilizes at a range of possible sustainable water supply levels (MM, WH), and that assume a relatively unregulated (LL) or tightly compact (LH) pattern of future development. See Van Schmidt et al. (2021) Water Resources Research (doi: XXXXXXXXXXXXX) for more details
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Related External Resources
Type: Related Primary Publication
Van Schmidt, N.D., Wilson, T.S., and Langridge, R., 2022, Linkages between land-use change and groundwater management foster long-term resilience of water supply in California: Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, v. 40, p. 101056, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2022.101056.
The sustainable management of groundwater is inextricably linked to land use-land cover change and to the long-term resilience of local communities. There is a pressing need to understand how the dynamic couplings and feedbacks between institutional rules to manage the resource, land use changes, and groundwater storage affect water availability and sustainability, and to assess approaches to enhance the resilience of these coupled systems. California’s Central Coast, a major agricultural area that is almost entirely dependent on local groundwater supplies, provides a microcosm for understanding such linkages. The LUCAS-W model produces land use change maps and water sustainability estimates at a regional scale under a variety of different management strategies, enabling a regional-scale understanding of the coupled processes of water sustainability and development
