Abstract
As one of the six largest river basins in Shanxi Province, China, Linfen basin has been in severe groundwater level declining status caused by over-extraction of groundwater since 1976, along with dense distribution of land subsidence and ground fissures. Future Groundwater drawdown analysis due to over-extraction is a major concern for not only water resource management, but also preventive and controlling measures of land subsidence and ground fissures. Consequently, in this paper groundwater extraction dynamic process for the confined aquifer at Linfen basin was simulated based on COMSOL Multiphysics. Then future groundwater extraction scenarios, namely, groundwater drawdown values within a period of consecutive 20 years and their consequent impacts on confined aquifer discharge amount to the Yellow River were predicted. The results demonstrated that the groundwater drawdown value and lateral discharge to the Yellow River would reach 7.07 m/a and 0.56 × 108 m3/a respectively in 10 years, while these two numbers drop to 3.44 m/a and 0.25 × 108 m3/a in 20 years. In order to provide valuable information for local government and policy makers, the paper would finally quantify a sustainable groundwater extraction value—20% of current groundwater extraction amount.
Highlights
Literature review As a matter of fact, lots of Chinese scholars contribute to groundwater protection and management to control land subsidence and ground fissures in Shanxi Province and concentrate on groundwater modelling and monitoring at different basins, e.g. Tianyang basin (Zhang, Fan, & Guo, 2008), Datong basin (Han, 2008; Wilson, Xie, Pi, Liu, & Zhu, 2016), Xinzhou basin (Han, 2007; Li, Han, Liang, Yang, & Cao, 2014), Taiyuan basin (Guo, 2005; Sun, Peng, Cui, & Jiang, 2016), Linfen basin (Bai & Wang, 2004; Bai, Wang, & Wang, 2009), Yuncheng basin (Kabera & Luo, 2012; Li, Gao, & Wang, 2014) and Changzhi basin (Fu, Wu, & Li, 2003; Zhang, 2009) etc
We would develop an finite element model according to appropriate boundary conditions based on COMSOL Multiphysics; imitate the groundwater extraction processes as water supply from basin area; assess the groundwater level changes in future; project the corresponding groundwater discharges to the Yellow River and quantify a sustainable groundwater exploitation value for protecting local groundwater resource and controlling land subsidence and ground fissures
COMSOL Multiphysics is a finite element modeling program used to solve a wide range of partial differential equations (PDEs) with applications ranging from acoustics to fluid flow, which functions as a novel approach to groundwater modelling (Li, Ito, Wu, Lowry, & Loheide, 2009)
Summary
As one of the nation’s most important natural resources, groundwater is threatened by the phenomenon of over-extraction nowadays. Overextraction of groundwater will lead to severe declines of groundwater levels, and land subsidence and ground fissures. Local government and policy makers are concerned about the over-extraction of groundwater. This research develops a groundwater extraction dynamic model that can assist policy makers in analyzing future groundwater drawdown value and quantifying a sustainable groundwater extraction value. Through this research local government and policy makers can predict the future groundwater extraction scenarios and take a range of measures to control over-extraction of groundwater
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