Anthropogenic and climate-driven water depletion in Asia

Anthropogenic depletion of terrestrial water storage (TWS) can be alleviated in wet years and intensified in dry years, and this pattern spanning seasons to years is termed climate variability. However, the anthropogenic and climate-driven changes have not been isolated in previous studies; thus, the trend estimation of the TWS change is strongly dependent on the study period. Here, we try to alleviate the influence of climate variability in the estimation of anthropogenic contribution, which is an indicator of environmental burden and important for TWS projections. For this end, we put forward a linear relationship between the variation in water storage and precipitation. To correct for the climate variability, sensitivity factors of water storage to precipitation are given by this method, and the anthropogenic depletion of terrestrial water and groundwater in Asia is estimated to be -187 ± 38 Gt/yr and -100 ± 47 Gt/yr, respectively.