Stream-Aquifer Interactions

Groundwater pumping can cause reductions in streamflow, but attributing changes in streamflow to groundwater pumping is difficult because these changes are superimposed on weather-driven variability in streamflow and there may be long lags between pumping and hydrologic change.

Ongoing work in this area focuses on developing simple, user-friendly tools for estimating streamflow depletion due to groundwater pumping and quantifying streamflow depletion across the US.

Key past findings:

• Relatively simple, empirical extensions of traditional analytical models produce comparable streamflow depletion estimates to complex numerical models ( Zipper et al., 2018; Zipper et al., 2019).
• Urbanization and cannabis cultivation have significant potential impacts on streamflow depletion in California’s Navarro River Watershed ( Zipper et al., 2019).