Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
The Precipitationshed: Concepts, Methods, and Applications
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7250-1563
2016 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Human societies are reliant on the functioning of the hydrologic cycle. The atmospheric branch of this cycle, often referred to as moisture recycling in the context of land-to-land exchange, refers to water evaporating, traveling through the atmosphere, and falling out as precipitation. Similar to the surface water cycle that uses the watershed as the unit of analysis, it is also possible to consider a ‘watershed of the sky’ for the atmospheric water cycle. Thus, I explore the precipitationshed - defined as the upwind surface of the Earth that provides evaporation that later falls as precipitation in a specific place. The primary contributions of this dissertation are to (a) introduce the precipitationshed concept, (b) provide a quantitative basis for the study of the precipitationshed, and (c) demonstrate its use in the fields of hydrometeorology, land-use change, social-ecological systems, ecosystem services, and environmental governance.

In Paper I, the concept of the precipitationshed is introduced and explored for the first time. The quantification of precipitationshed variability is described in Paper II, and the key finding is that the precipitationsheds for multiple regions are persistent in time and space. Moisture recycling is further described as an ecosystem service in Paper III, to integrate the concept into the existing language of environmental sustainability and management. That is, I identify regions where vegetation more strongly regulates the provision of atmospheric water, as well as the regions that more strongly benefit from this regulation. In Paper IV, the precipitationshed is further explored through the lens of urban reliance on moisture recycling. Using a novel method, I quantify the vulnerability of urban areas to social-ecological changes within their precipitationsheds. In Paper V, I argue that successful moisture recycling governance will require flexible, transboundary institutions that are capable of operating within complex social-ecological systems. I conclude that, in the future, the precipitationshed can be a key tool in addressing the complexity of social-ecological systems. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University , 2016. , p. 54
Keywords [en]
water, atmosphere, precipitationshed, moisture recycling, variability, ecosystem services, social-ecological systems
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-132375ISBN: 978-91-7649-464-6 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-132375DiVA, id: diva2:951928
Public defence
2016-09-29, Vivi Täckholmsalen (Q-salen), NPQ-huset, Svante Arrhenius väg 20, Stockholm, 13:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Note

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript. Paper 5: Manuscript.

 

Available from: 2016-09-06 Created: 2016-08-11 Last updated: 2022-02-23Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Analyzing precipitationsheds to understand the vulnerability of rainfall dependent regions
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Analyzing precipitationsheds to understand the vulnerability of rainfall dependent regions
Show others...
2012 (English)In: Biogeosciences, ISSN 1726-4170, E-ISSN 1726-4189, Vol. 9, no 2, p. 733-746Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

It is well known that rivers connect upstream and downstream ecosystems within watersheds. Here we describe the concept of precipitationsheds to show how upwind terrestrial evaporation source areas contribute moisture for precipitation to downwind sink regions. We illustrate the importance of upwind land cover in precipitationsheds to sustain precipitation in critically water stressed downwind areas, specifically dryland agricultural areas. We first identify seven regions where rainfed agriculture is particularly vulnerable to reductions in precipitation, and then map their precipitationsheds. We then develop a framework for qualitatively assessing the vulnerability of precipitation for these seven agricultural regions. We illustrate that the sink regions have varying degrees of vulnerability to changes in upwind evaporation rates depending on the extent of the precipitationshed, source region land use intensity and expected land cover changes in the source region.

National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-70026 (URN)10.5194/bg-9-733-2012 (DOI)000300877400009 ()
Note

6

Available from: 2012-01-16 Created: 2012-01-16 Last updated: 2022-03-23Bibliographically approved
2. Variability of moisture recycling using a precipitationshed framework
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Variability of moisture recycling using a precipitationshed framework
2014 (English)In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, ISSN 1027-5606, E-ISSN 1607-7938, Vol. 18, no 10, p. 3937-3950Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Recent research has revealed that upwind land-use changes can significantly influence downwind precipitation. The precipitationshed (the upwind ocean and land surface that contributes evaporation to a specific location's precipitation) may provide a boundary for coordination and governance of these upwind-downwind water linkages. We aim to quantify the variability of the precipitationshed boundary to determine whether there are persistent and significant sources of evaporation for a given region's precipitation. We identify the precipitationsheds for three regions (i.e., western Sahel, northern China, and La Plata) by tracking atmospheric moisture with a numerical water transport model (Water Accounting Model-2layers, or WAM-2layers) using gridded fields from both the ERA-Interim (European Reanalysis Interim) and MERRA (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) reanalyses. Precipitationshed variability is examined first by diagnosing the persistence of the evaporation contribution and second with an analysis of the spatial variability of the evaporation contribution. The analysis leads to three key conclusions: (1) a core precipitationshed exists; (2) most of the variance in the precipitationshed is explained by a pulsing of more or less evaporation from the core precipitationshed; and (3) the reanalysis data sets agree reasonably well, although the degree of agreement is regionally dependent. Given that much of the growing-season evaporation arises from within a core precipitationshed that is largely persistent in time, we conclude that the precipitationshed can potentially provide a useful boundary for governing land-use change on downwind precipitation.

National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-110776 (URN)10.5194/hess-18-3937-2014 (DOI)000344730300006 ()
Note

AuthorCount:4;

Available from: 2014-12-17 Created: 2014-12-17 Last updated: 2022-03-23Bibliographically approved
3. Revealing Invisible Water: Moisture Recycling as an Ecosystem Service
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Revealing Invisible Water: Moisture Recycling as an Ecosystem Service
2016 (English)In: PLOS ONE, E-ISSN 1932-6203, Vol. 11, no 3, article id e0151993Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

An ecosystem service is a benefit derived by humanity that can be traced back to an ecological process. Although ecosystem services related to surface water have been thoroughly described, the relationship between atmospheric water and ecosystem services has been mostly neglected, and perhaps misunderstood. Recent advances in land-atmosphere modeling have revealed the importance of terrestrial ecosystems for moisture recycling. In this paper, we analyze the extent to which vegetation sustains the supply of atmospheric moisture and precipitation for downwind beneficiaries, globally. We simulate land-surface evaporation with a global hydrology model and track changes to moisture recycling using an atmospheric moisture budget model, and we define vegetation-regulated moisture recycling as the difference in moisture recycling between current vegetation and a hypothetical desert world. Our results show that nearly a fifth of annual average precipitation falling on land is from vegetation-regulated moisture recycling, but the global variability is large, with many places receiving nearly half their precipitation from this ecosystem service. The largest potential impacts for changes to this ecosystem service are land-use changes across temperate regions in North America and Russia. Likewise, in semi-arid regions reliant on rainfed agricultural production, land-use change that even modestly reduces evaporation and subsequent precipitation, could significantly affect human well-being. We also present a regional case study in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, where we identify the specific moisture recycling ecosystem services associated with the vegetation in Mato Grosso. We find that Mato Grosso vegetation regulates some internal precipitation, with a diffuse region of benefit downwind, primarily to the south and east, including the La Plata River basin and the megacities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. We synthesize our global and regional results into a generalized framework for describing moisture recycling as an ecosystem service. We conclude that future work ought to disentangle whether and how this vegetationregulated moisture recycling interacts with other ecosystem services, so that trade-offs can be assessed in a comprehensive and sustainable manner.

National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-129674 (URN)10.1371/journal.pone.0151993 (DOI)000372694700091 ()26998832 (PubMedID)
Available from: 2016-05-23 Created: 2016-04-27 Last updated: 2022-03-23Bibliographically approved
4. Megacity precipitationsheds reveal reliance on regional evaporation for water supply
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Megacity precipitationsheds reveal reliance on regional evaporation for water supply
(English)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-132373 (URN)
Available from: 2016-08-11 Created: 2016-08-11 Last updated: 2022-02-23Bibliographically approved
5. Approaching moisture recycling governance
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Approaching moisture recycling governance
Show others...
(English)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Sustainability Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-132374 (URN)
Available from: 2016-08-11 Created: 2016-08-11 Last updated: 2022-02-23Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

The Precipitationshed(1323 kB)1349 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 1323 kBChecksum SHA-512
b8ca3ddfd8847bbefc0feb88537004c8f2619ed77897d0793702ec95c6d77fba010a3f2559e40092ecc55332742d5982fd23c6069b3c61252f53315494e341f8
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Authority records

Keys, Patrick W.

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Keys, Patrick W.
By organisation
Stockholm Resilience Centre
Environmental Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 1350 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 1450 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf