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There is an emerging understanding toward the importance of land-atmosphere interactions in the monsoon system, but the effects of specific land and water management practices remain unclear. Here, using regional process-based experiments, we demonstrate that monsoon precipitation is sensitive to the choice of irrigation practices in South Asia. Experiments with realistic representation of unmanaged irrigation and paddy cultivation over north-northwest India exhibit an increase in the late season terrestrial monsoon precipitation and intensification of widespread extreme events over Central India, consistent with changes in observations. Such precipitation changes exhibit substantially different spatial patterns in experiments with a well-managed irrigation system, indicating that increase in unmanaged irrigation might be a factor driving the observed changes in the intraseasonal monsoon characteristics. Our findings stress the need for accurate representation of irrigation practices to improve the reliability of earth system modeling over South Asia.

Plain Language Summary South Asia is one of the most heavily irrigated regions of the world, and a large proportion of the water for irrigation is extracted through groundwater pumping. The major summer crop of the region is paddy, which is cultivated in fields flooded with water. Here we study the impact of this agricultural water use on the Indian Summer Monsoon using a climate model. We find that the excess irrigation over northern India shifts the September month monsoon rainfall toward the northwestern part of the subcontinent. This pattern of change is also visible in recorded rainfall over the region in the recent past. Another major impact we see is on the intensity of extreme rainfall events over the central part of the country. Central India has witnessed an increase in extreme rainfall in recent decades, and through this study, we find that irrigation increases the rainfall intensity over Central India during these events. These findings indicate that it is important to represent irrigation practices more accurately in climate models.