Irrigation cooling effect reduced by water-saving practices

Irrigation modifies land-atmosphere interactions, cooling land surface and mitigating heat extremes. However, the global shift toward water-saving irrigation technologies raises new questions about the climate regulation capacity of irrigation under constrained water use. Using two decades of high-resolution satellite observations across China, we show that widespread water-saving adoption has substantially weakened irrigation’s biophysical cooling effects, particularly in late summer and early spring. Daytime land surface cooling declined by 0.05 K/decade (15%) nationally and up to 0.20 K/decade (9%) in arid regions, primarily due to reduced soil evaporation and increased sensible heat flux. This trend was absent in semi-arid and semi-humid regions because of enhanced crop transpiration. Conversely, nighttime cooling intensified by 0.04 K per decade, likely driven by lower soil thermal capacity and radiative feedbacks. These findings reveal an emerging trade-off between water-use efficiency and climate mitigation, calling for considering evolving irrigation practices in Earth system models and climate change projections. Water-saving irrigation weakens daytime cooling and enhances nighttime cooling across China; satellite and surface energy balance analyses (2001–2020) link this to reduced soil evaporation, increased sensible heat, and altered land–atmosphere interactions.

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Publication Details

Journal
Communications Earth & Environment
Published
2025-12-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03030-5
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Urban Heat Island Mitigation
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.80
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article

Irrigation cooling effect reduced by water-saving practices

Shushi Peng, Guosong Zhao, Kun Zhang, Guoyong Leng et al.
1 citations
Communications Earth & Environment
Urban Heat Island Mitigation
0.80
article

Irrigation cooling effect reduced by water-saving practices

Shushi Peng, Guosong Zhao, Kun Zhang, Guoyong Leng, Songjun Han, Xuezhen Zhang, Wim Thiery, Geli Zhang, Zhenong Jin, Quansheng Ge, Jinwei Dong, Wei Li, Chao Zhang, Xiangming Xiao, Yan Li
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Irrigation modifies land-atmosphere interactions, cooling land surface and mitigating heat extremes. However, the global shift toward water-saving irrigation technologies raises new questions about the climate regulation capacity of irrigation under constrained water use. Using two decades of high-resolution satellite observations across China, we show that widespread water-saving adoption has substantially weakened irrigation’s biophysical cooling effects, particularly in late summer and early spring. Daytime land surface cooling declined by 0.05 K/decade (15%) nationally and up to 0.20 K/decade (9%) in arid regions, primarily due to reduced soil evaporation and increased sensible heat flux. This trend was absent in semi-arid and semi-humid regions because of enhanced crop transpiration. Conversely, nighttime cooling intensified by 0.04 K per decade, likely driven by lower soil thermal capacity and radiative feedbacks. These findings reveal an emerging trade-off between water-use efficiency and climate mitigation, calling for considering evolving irrigation practices in Earth system models and climate change projections. Water-saving irrigation weakens daytime cooling and enhances nighttime cooling across China; satellite and surface energy balance analyses (2001–2020) link this to reduced soil evaporation, increased sensible heat, and altered land–atmosphere interactions.

Communications Earth & EnvironmentVol. 7(1)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE), Sun Yat-sen University (CN), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Peking University (CN), Beijing Normal University (CN), China University of Geosciences (CN), China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (CN), Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (CN), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), China Agricultural University (CN), University of Oklahoma (US), Tsinghua University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 22%
Urban Heat Island Mitigation
0.80
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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