Groundwater analysis using Gravity Recovery, Climate Experiment and Google Earth Engine: Bundelkhand region, India

Abstract

India is one of the highest consumers of groundwater in the world. This precious resource is important for socio-economic development and it has been extremely rapidly depleting. Therefore, monitoring of groundwater storage (GWS) change is of great significance. Dependence on in-situ groundwater measurement for accurate assessment of regional-scale GWS changes is constrained, especially over extended durations, due to poor spatiotemporal coverage of in-situ measurement and uncertainty in the storage process. In present study, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), which offers quantitative measurement of terrestrial water storage (TWS) coupled with TerraClimate data, has been used to estimate the changes in GWS from 2002 to 2017 for the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India. Google Earth Engine and ArcGIS are the processing software employed to process and analyse the satellite data. It was observed that, on average GWS, has been depleted by 112 mm during the studied period. The highest GWS fluctuation was observed in 2012(-247 mm to –60 mm); the lowest fluctuation for year 2009, (−162 mm to −43 mm). Volumetric groundwater depletion in the study area was calculated using the average GWS depletion. There is a reduction of 1,12,000 m3 groundwater per unit square kilometre area over the period of 16 years, however, 3.29 × 109 m3 in the entire studied region. Because of the rugged topography and hard rock terrain, the recharge process is poor. The population of the area increased by 24%, or by a factor of two, throughout the research period.