Identification

Title

Impact of irrigation on farmworker’s heat stress in California differs by season and during the day and night

Abstract

<p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);display:inline !important;float:none;font-family:-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Farmworkers, the frontline workers of our food system, are often exposed to heat stress that is likely to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change. Irrigation can either alleviate or exacerbate heat stress, quantification of which is crucial in intensely irrigated agricultural lands such as the Imperial Valley in southern California. We investigate the impact of irrigation on wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), a key indicator of heat exposure in humans, using a validated high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model, during day and night and in different seasons. We find that irrigation reduces WBGT by 0.3–1.3 °C during the daytime in summer due to strong evaporative cooling. However, during the summer nights, irrigation increases WBGT by 0.4–1.3 °C, when a large increase in humidity sufficiently raises the wet-bulb temperature. Urban and fallow areas adjacent to cropped fields also experience increased heat stress due to moisture advection from irrigated areas. Our results can inform heat-related policies in agricultural regions of California and elsewhere.</span></p>

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d71g0rjj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-12-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact