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Data and code from: Groundwaterscapes: A global classification and mapping of groundwater's large-scale socioeconomic, ecological, and Earth system functions
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Huggins, Xander; Gleeson, Tom; Villholth, Karen G.; Rocha, Juan C.; Famiglietti, James S. — 2024-10-10 <strong> This repository consists of: </strong> <br> 1. The global groundwaterscape classification raster <br> 2. The groundwaterscape legend, with descriptions and attributes of each groundwaterscape <br> 3. The colour map to reproduce the groundwaterscape maps as shown in the associated paper <br> 4. An archive of the scripts used to perform all analysis, also located at the GitHub repository: <a href ="https://github.com/XanderHuggins/groundwaterscapes" target="_blank">https://github.com/XanderHuggins/groundwaterscapes</a><br> 5. A ReadMe file <br> <br> <strong> Associated paper's abstract: </strong> <br> Groundwater is a dynamic component of the global water cycle with important social, economic, ecological, and Earth system functions. We present a new global classification and mapping of groundwater systems, which we call groundwaterscapes, that represent predominant configurations of large-scale groundwater system functions. We identify and map 15 groundwaterscapes which offer a new lens to conceptualize, study, model, and manage groundwater. Groundwaterscapes are derived using a novel application of sequenced self-organizing maps that capture patterns in groundwater system functions at the grid cell level (~10 km), including groundwater-dependent ecosystem type and density, storage capacity, irrigation, safe drinking water access, and national governance. All large aquifer systems of the world are characterized by multiple groundwaterscapes, highlighting the pitfalls of treating these groundwater bodies as lumped systems in global assessments. We evaluate the distribution of Global Groundwater Monitoring Network wells across groundwaterscapes and find that industrial agricultural regions are disproportionately monitored, while several groundwaterscapes have next to no monitoring wells. This disparity undermines the ability to understand system dynamics across the full range of settings that characterize groundwater systems globally. We argue that groundwaterscapes offer a conceptual and spatial tool to guide model development, hypothesis testing, and future data collection initiatives to better understand groundwater’s embeddedness within social-ecological systems at the global scale.
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Poor correlation between large-scale environmental flows violations and global freshwater biodiversity: implications for water resource management and the water planetary boundary
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Gleeson, Tom; Mohan, Chinchu; Famiglietti, James S; Virkki, Vili; Kummu, Matti; Porkka, Miina; Wang-Erlandsson, Lan; Huggins, Xander; Gerten, Dieter; Jähnig, Sonja C — 2022-07-12 The freshwater ecosystems all over the world are degrading, such that maintaining environmental flow (EF) in river networks is critical to their preservation. The relationship between streamflow alterations and, respectively, EF violations, and freshwater biodiversity is well established at the scale of stream reaches or small basins (~<100 km²). However, it is unclear if this relationship is robust at larger scales even though there are large-scale initiatives to legalize the EF requirement and EFs have been used in assessing a planetary boundary for freshwater. Therefore, this study intends to evaluate the relationship between EF violation and freshwater biodiversity at large basin scale (median area = 19,600 km2), globally-aggregated scales, and at freshwater ecoregions, and test the prevailing assumption of scalability of this relationship. Four EF violation indices (severity, frequency, the probability to shift to violated state, and probability to stay violated) and nine independent freshwater biodiversity indicators (calculated from observed biota data except one empirically derived from streamflow deviation) were used for correlation analysis. EF violations showed an inverse relationship with the streamflow-derived biodiversity indicator (MSAhy) at the level 5 HydroBASIN scale. However, no statistically significant negative relationship between environmental flows and freshwater biodiversity was found at the global or ecoregion scale except between the streamflow-derived biodiversity indicator (MSAhy) and all EF violation indices. While our results thus suggest that streamflow and EF may not be the main determinants of freshwater biodiversity, they do not preclude the existence of relationships with more holistic EF methods (e.g. including water temperature, water quality, intermittency, connectivity, etc.) or with other biodiversity data or metrics.
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Data from: Overlooked risks and opportunities in groundwatersheds of the world’s protected areas
Borealis
Huggins, Xander; Gleeson, Tom; Serrano, David; Zipper, Sam; Jehn, Florian; Rohde, Melissa M.; Abell, Robin; Vigerstol, Kari; Hartmann, Andreas — 2023-03-01 <strong> This repository consists of: </strong> <br> 1. A GeoTIFF (.tif) of groundwater-dependent ecosystem (GDE) types at 30 arcsecond resolution, globally <br> 2. A GeoTIFF (.tif) of groundwatershed extents for GDEs within protected areas, derived globally at 30 arcsecond resolution <br> 3. A GeoPackage (.gpkg) containing vector polygons of all contiguous protected areas included in the study with key summary statistics provided in the attribute data <br> 4. An archive of the scripts used to perform all analysis, also located at the GitHub repository: https://github.com/XanderHuggins/groundwatersheds-for-PAs <br> 5. A ReadMe file <br> <br> <strong> Associated paper's abstract: </strong> <br> Protected areas are a key tool for conserving biodiversity, sustaining ecosystem services and improving human well-being. Global initiatives that aim to expand and connect protected areas generally focus on controlling ‘above ground’ impacts such as land use, overlooking the potential for human actions in adjacent areas to affect protected areas through groundwater flow. Here, we assess the potential footprint of these impacts by mapping groundwatersheds for the world’s protected areas. We find that 85% of protected areas with groundwater-dependent ecosystems have groundwatersheds that are underprotected, meaning that some portion of the groundwatershed lies outside of the protected area. Half of all protected areas have a groundwatershed with a spatial footprint that lies mostly (i.e., at least 50%) outside of the protected area’s boundary. These findings highlight a widespread potential risk to protected areas from activities affecting groundwater outside protected areas, underscoring the need for groundwatershed-based conservation and management measures. Delineating groundwatersheds can catalyze needed discussions about protected area connectivity and robustness, and groundwatershed conservation and management can help protect groundwater-dependent ecosystems from external threats.
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Data from: Hotspots for social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss
Borealis
Huggins, Xander; Gleeson, Tom; Kummu, Matti; Zipper, Sam C.; Wada, Yoshihide; Troy, Tara J.; Famiglietti, James S. — 2021-11-30 Humans and ecosystems are deeply connected to, and through, the hydrological cycle. However, impacts of hydrological change on social and ecological systems are infrequently evaluated together at the global scale. Here, we focus on the potential for social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss. We find basins with existing freshwater stress are drying (losing storage) disproportionately, exacerbating the challenges facing the water stressed versus non-stressed basins of the world. We map the global gradient in social-ecological vulnerability to freshwater stress and storage loss and identify hotspot basins for prioritization (n = 168). These most-vulnerable basins encompass over 1.5 billion people, 17% of global food crop production, 13% of global gross domestic product, and hundreds of significant wetlands. There are thus substantial social and ecological benefits to reducing vulnerability in hotspot basins, which can be achieved through hydro-diplomacy, social adaptive capacity building, and integrated water resources management practices.

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(Author: Huggins, Xander)

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