Abstract
Groundwater storage (GWS) in the Haihe River Basin (HRB), which is one of the most densely populated and largest agricultural areas in China, is of great importance for the ecosystem environment and socio-economic development. In recent years, large-scale overexploitation of groundwater in HRB has made it one of the global hotspots of GWS depletion. In this study, monthly GWS variations in HRB from 2003 to 2020 were estimated using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) data in combination with three land surface models (LSMs) from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS). The results show the following: (1) HRB suffered extensive GWS depletion from 2003 to 2020, which has been aggravated since 2014, with a mean rate of 1.88 cm·yr−1, which is equivalent to a volume of 6 billion m3·yr−1. The GWS depletion is more serious in the plain zone (−2.36 cm·yr−1) than in the mountainous zone (−1.63 cm·yr−1). (2) Climate changes are excluded from the reasons for GWS depletion due to annual precipitation and evaporation being close to normal throughout the period. In addition, GWS changes show a low correlation with meteorological factors. (3) The consumption of groundwater for irrigation and land use/cover changes have been confirmed to be the dominant factors for GWS depletion in HRB. (4) The effects of inter-basin water transfer projects cannot be obviously observed using the GRACE and GRACE-FO; more inter-basin water transfers are needed for recovering the GWS in HRB. Therefore, it is imperative to control groundwater exploitation and develop a more economical agricultural irrigation structure for the sustainability of groundwater resources in HRB.
Highlights
Groundwater, the third largest water storage after the ocean and the cryosphere, is the world’s largest freshwater resource for agriculture, industry, public supply, and ecosystems [1,2]
GWS anomalies (GWSA) can be isolated from terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) derived by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)/FO and other components estimated by auxiliary data using the following formula: GWSA = TWSA − surface water storage anomalies (SWSA) = TWSA − (SMA + SWE anomalies (SWEA) + CWS anomalies (CWSA))
The GWSA based on the GRACE/FO and land surface models (LSMs) present a significant depletion in Beijing
Summary
Groundwater, the third largest water storage after the ocean and the cryosphere, is the world’s largest freshwater resource for agriculture, industry, public supply, and ecosystems [1,2]. Some regions consume more groundwater than is recharged, causing groundwater storage (GWS) depletion [3]. In the past several decades, GWS depletion has occurred in many areas throughout the world, such as in north China [4], northwest. GWS depletion has already caused some negative geological impacts on the environment, such as groundwater funnels, land subsidence, soil salinization, seawater intrusion, groundwater quality deterioration, and, in some cases, ecosystem degradation [7,8,9,10].
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