Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on Groundwater Resources, Study of Faisalabad District, Pakistan

Abstract

Groundwater depletion has become a major concern all over the world. Recently, the rapid population growth and need for water and food have placed a massive strain on land and water resources. In this study, groundwater depletion resulting from land-use and climate change was investigated in the Faisalabad district, Pakistan, from 2000 to 2015. A Pearson correlation analysis between climatic parameters and land-use indices with groundwater was conducted to explore the major influencing factors. Interpolation maps of groundwater were generated using the inverse distance weighting interpolation (IDW) method. The Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) of five-year intervals demonstrated a strong increasing trend, whereas the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) presented a declining trend. The results also indicated a significant declining trend in groundwater levels in the region, with the annual average groundwater level decreasing at a rate of approximately 0.11 m/year. Climatic parameters (i.e., precipitation and temperature) further reveal an insignificant increasing trend estimated using the Mann–Kendall test and Sens’s slope. Overall, spatial analysis results showed a statistically significant positive trend in the groundwater level of the Faisalabad district, where the NDBI ratio is high and the NDVI is low, owing to the extensive extraction of groundwater for domestic and industrial use. These findings may be useful for a better understanding of groundwater depletion in densely populated areas and could also aid in devising safety procedures for sustainable groundwater management.