Groundwater depletion in northern India: Impacts of the sub‐regional anthropogenic land‐use, socio‐politics and changing climate

Understanding the key drivers behind intensive use of groundwater resources and subsequent depletion in northern India is important for future food security of India. Although spatio‐temporal changes of groundwater storage (GWS) and its depletion in northern India are mapped using the NASA's GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) records, the sub‐regional diverse socio‐political and environmental factors contributing to the variability in groundwater withdrawals and renewals are not well documented. Here, we provide new evidence on changes in GWS at different spatial scales using both observations and satellite‐based measurements applying both parametric and non‐parametric statistical analyses. The substantial loss of GWS has occurred since the beginning of the 21st century, and the decline in GWS is associated with some record‐breaking dry and hot climate events. We present how certain state‐based policy decisions, such as supplying free electricity for irrigation, prompted farmers to extract groundwater unsustainably and thus led to widespread GWS deletion, which has been also accelerated by frequent dryness and rising temperatures. In the hotspot of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi of northern India, the extracted groundwater during 1985–2013 is equivalent to a metre‐high layer if spread uniformly across its geographical domain. We find that the groundwater storage loss in northern India has increased rapidly from 17 km 3 to 189 km 3 between the pre‐2002 and 2002–2013 periods. This loss in northern India is, therefore, an excellent example of rapid surface greening and sub‐surface drying—a result of an interplay of socio‐political and environmental factors. As groundwater continues to be treated as a common natural resource and no clear definition exists to guide policymaking, this study also illustrates how the administrative district level approach can solve the widespread problem of depletion.