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WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 43, W04402, doi:10.1029/2006WR005062, 2007

Water use regimes: Characterizing direct human interaction with hydrologic systems

Peter K. Weiskel

U.S. Geological Survey, Northborough, Massachusetts, USA


Richard M. Vogel

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA


Peter A. Steeves

U.S. Geological Survey, Northborough, Massachusetts, USA


Philip J. Zarriello

U.S. Geological Survey, Northborough, Massachusetts, USA


Leslie A. DeSimone

U.S. Geological Survey, Northborough, Massachusetts, USA


Kernell G. Ries III

U.S. Geological Survey, Baltimore, Maryland, USA


Abstract

The sustainability of human water use practices is a rapidly growing concern in the United States and around the world. To better characterize direct human interaction with hydrologic systems (stream basins and aquifers), we introduce the concept of the water use regime. Unlike scalar indicators of anthropogenic hydrologic stress in the literature, the water use regime is a two-dimensional, vector indicator that can be depicted on simple x-y plots of normalized human withdrawals (h out) versus normalized human return flows (h in). Four end-member regimes, natural-flow-dominated (undeveloped), human-flow-dominated (churned), withdrawal-dominated (depleted), and return-flow-dominated (surcharged), are defined in relation to limiting values of h out and h in. For illustration, the water use regimes of 19 diverse hydrologic systems are plotted and interpreted. Several of these systems, including the Yellow River Basin, China, and the California Central Valley Aquifer, are shown to approach particular end-member regimes. Spatial and temporal regime variations, both seasonal and long-term, are depicted. Practical issues of data availability and regime uncertainty are addressed in relation to the statistical properties of the ratio estimators h out and h in. The water use regime is shown to be a useful tool for comparative water resources assessment and for describing both historic and alternative future pathways of water resource development at a range of scales.

Received 29 March 2006; accepted 23 October 2006; published 4 April 2007.

Keywords: water resource assessment; water use; hydrologic budgets; water management; water indicators; global water resources.

Index Terms: 1655 Global Change: Water cycles (1836); 1834 Hydrology: Human impacts; 1836 Hydrology: Hydrological cycles and budgets (1218, 1655); 1880 Hydrology: Water management (6334); 1884 Hydrology: Water supply.

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Citation: Weiskel, P. K., R. M. Vogel, P. A. Steeves, P. J. Zarriello, L. A. DeSimone, and K. G. Ries III (2007), Water use regimes: Characterizing direct human interaction with hydrologic systems, Water Resour. Res., 43, W04402, doi:10.1029/2006WR005062.