Sustainable use of groundwater sources in response to water scarcity and increasing water demands at regional to global scales mitigates the unprecedented impacts of over drafted groundwater storage. California’s Central Valley is in a semi-arid climatic zone with a highly heterogeneous precipitation pattern. The basin’s agricultural induced water extractions have resulted in deep declines to groundwater storage, particularly in parts of Tulare and San Joaquin sub-basins. Dependence on groundwater supplies is projected to increase while over the past decade precipitation has reduced. Several socioeconomic water management plans and recharge enhancement methods (e.g., artificial recharge and Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR)) have been implemented across the region to restore overdrafted aquifers. Thus far, these methods have had limited success in recovering previous declines in groundwater storage, as they are limited by factors including limited excess precipitation, water availability, and proper infrastructure. Flooding croplands (Ag-MAR) also poses potential groundwater contamination risks. Thus, identifying efficient strategies that could maintain healthy and productive groundwater systems is crucial.
We are studying the implementation of a new eco-friendly strategy to sustain both water and energy reserves, called Solar Agricultural Managed Aquifer Recharge (Solar-AgMAR). Here, we firstly quantify required recharge within ideal location with Solar-AgMAR installation to see how much extra recharge sustains critically depleted aquifers regionwide using CVHM (Central Valley Hydrologic Model). We then simulate Solar Ag-MAR within a process-based Landscape Hydrologic Model (LHM) coupled with USGS-MODFLOW groundwater model to quantify both surface and groundwater hydrologic effects. The outcome of these assessments will improve our knowledge about efficiency of recharge-focused techniques on sustaining water resources and preserving groundwater budgets.