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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Interdisciplinary Climate Studies
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1421237
This article is part of the Research Topic Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation View all 7 articles

Evaluating levee setback distance for the co-benefits of groundwater recharge and riparian ecosystem function

Provisionally accepted
  • University of California, Davis, Davis, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Constructed levees are designed to protect anthropogenic developments from destructive flooding events, but their construction has reduced groundwater recharge, increased flood risk severity under levee failure, increased the incision of river channels, and deteriorated riparian habitat. To reverse these impacts, levee setbacks are often designed to reduce flood risk and provide the opportunity to restore ecohydrological function, while groundwater recharge is rarely considered because it may require relatively detailed groundwater system analysis. In this study we evaluated 100 heterogeneous hydrogeology realizations to estimate recharge with high conductivity pathways (HCPs) under varying flood flows for a range of levee setback distances to identify the tradeoffs in groundwater recharge and floodplain habitat. We find that on a regional scale total recharge potential increases with setback distance with largest gains up to 1400 m where there are outcropping HCPs and sufficient flow to inundate more of the setback area. In contrast, the recharge per unit area (i.e., the average daily recharge divided by setback area) generally decreases as levee setback increases, but there are local increases in recharge per unit area at 1400 m where HCP recharge may sufficiently offset the larger area. There is a median 10-40% reduction in peak streamflow with increasing setback distance which would aid flood risk reduction, but it leads to decreasing depth due to flow losses and increased spreading of flood water. Ultimately the decision for levee setback distance will depend on local conditions and management goals as we find that increasing recharge will reduce floodplain depth necessary for ecosystem function. Our results highlight the opportunity to consider groundwater recharge benefits into levee setback feasibility studies in semi-arid regions impacted by floods and groundwater overdraft so that setback distance designs can achieve integration of flood risk reduction, riparian habitat, and groundwater recharge.

    Keywords: Levee setback, Groundwater recharge, Aquifer heterogeneity, Floodplain inundation, ecosystem function

    Received: 22 Apr 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Calderwood, Rodriguez, Foglia and Dahlke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Andrew J Calderwood, University of California, Davis, Davis, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.