Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources and Irrigated Agriculture in the Central Valley of California

Agricultural productivity is strongly dependent on the availability of water, necessitating accurate projections of water resources, the allocation of water resources across competing sectors, and the effects of insufficient water resources on crops to assess the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity. To explore the interface of water and agriculture in California's Central Valley, the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) crop model was coupled to the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) water resources model, deployed over the region, and run using both historical and future climate scenarios. This coupling brings water supply constraints to DSSAT and sophisticated agricultural water use, management, and diagnostics to WEAP. A 30-year simulation of WEAP-DSSAT forced using a spatially interpolated observational dataset was run from 1980-2009. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Surface Resistance and Evapotranspiration (MOD16) and Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS) data were used to evaluate WEAP-DSSAT evapotranspiration calculations. Overall WEAP-DSSAT reasonably captures the seasonal cycle of observed evapotranspiration, but some catchments contain significant biases. Future climate scenarios were constructed by adjusting the spatially interpolated observational dataset with North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program differences between future (2050-2069) and historical (1980-1999) regional climate model simulations of precipitation and temperature. Generally, within the Central Valley temperatures warm by approximately 2°C, precipitation remains constant, and crop water use efficiency increases. The overall impacts of future climate on irrigated agricultural yields varies across the Central Valley and is highly dependent on crop, water resources demand assumptions, and agricultural management.