ArticleNature communications2023
River interlinking alters land-atmosphere feedback and changes the Indian summer monsoon.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- River interlinking and biodiversity risks in Indian freshwater ecosystems.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Evaluating climate shifts and drought regions in the central Indian river basins.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Unprecedented large-scale aquifer recovery through human intervention.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Changes in physical characteristics of extreme rainfall events during the Indian summer monsoon based on downscaled and bias-corrected CMIP6 models.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- River interlinking alters land-atmosphere feedback and changes the Indian summer monsoon.Nature communications · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Massive river interlinking projects are proposed to offset observed increasing droughts and floods in India, the most populated country in the world. These projects involve water transfer from surplus to deficit river basins through reservoirs and canals without an in-depth understanding of the hydro-meteorological consequences. Here, we use causal delineation techniques, a coupled regional climate model, and multiple reanalysis datasets, and show that land-atmosphere feedbacks generate causal pathways between river basins in India. We further find that increased irrigation from the transferred water reduces mean rainfall in September by up to 12% in already water-stressed regions of India. We observe more drying in La Niña years compared to El Niño years. Reduced September precipitation can dry rivers post-monsoon, augmenting water stress across the country and rendering interlinking dysfunctional. Our findings highlight the need for model-guided impact assessment studies of large-scale hydrological projects across the globe.
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Registered trials
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