Open AccessTrends in groundwater changes driven by precipitation and anthropogenic activities on the southeast side of the Hu Line
Author(s) -
Kai Li,
Xueke Li,
Xinping Long
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
environmental research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.37
H-Index - 124
ISSN - 1748-9326
DOI - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac1ed8
Subject(s) - groundwater , environmental science , precipitation , nexus (standard) , china , climate change , water cycle , water resources , physical geography , water resource management , geography , ecology , geology , meteorology , oceanography , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , computer science , biology , embedded system
Groundwater resources consumption and management play a crucial role in food-energy- water nexus. However, the trends in groundwater storage variability and its attribution remain unclear because of the combined effects of climatic and anthropogenic terms. Here we use satellites and monitoring well observations to reveal the trends in groundwater storage change (GWSC), which exhibits geographical heterogeneity over the southeast side of the Hu Line in China during 1979–2012. The GWSC in northern China showed a slight decrease from 1979 to 1997, and the declining pattern extended to surrounding regions from 1998 to 2012. A considerable fraction of the GWSC trend can be attributed jointly to precipitation variations and human water usage. The anthropogenic factors that are primarily associated with socioeconomic development contribute to ∼31% of the variability in GWSC. Water management policies carried out in recent years reasonably explain the recovery of GWSC across regions with declining groundwater in 2013–2019. A positive trend in GWSC is further projected (2020–2029), though with uncertainties.