Abstract
Natural conditions of surface water bodies and groundwater aquifers in the North China Plain (NCP) have been altered to meet the ever-growing human water demands. Several water resources management measures have been implemented in recent decades to alleviate groundwater depletion, maintain ecological resilience, and sustain agricultural production. This study aims to investigate their impacts on land water storage, and thus obtain a picture of the spatio-temporal variation of water resources over the NCP. Based on multi-mission earth observation datasets, i.e., altimetry (Sentinel-3), synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and spectral imagery (Sentinel-1/2), gravimetry (GRACE/-FO), and microwave sensors (IMERG), as well as reanalysis datasets, we investigate surface water storage (SWS), soil moisture water storage (SMS), and total water storage (TWS) changes. Groundwater storage (GWS) change is subsequently estimated as the residual of the total storage equation.Results show that TWS declined significantly over the past decades (−1.04 ± 0.05 cm/yr in 2004 to 2020), while SMS rebounded after a decreasing trend from 2004 to 2014. The spatial pattern of TWS variations depicts a particularly severe depletion along provincial boundaries. The SWS dynamics reveal that the volumes of three major NCP reservoirs (Guanting, Miyun, and Danjiangkou) increased significantly since around 2014 when the operation of the South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route project (SNWDP-MR) started. Moreover, GWS maintained a depletion rate of −1.05 ± 0.08 cm/yr during 2004–2014 over the whole NCP, while the depletion rate accelerated during 2015–2020 (−1.88 ± 0.38 cm/yr). We also found that the GWS depletion in Beijing (−1.20 ± 0.10 cm/yr during 2004–2014 and −0.79 ± 0.44 cm/yr during 2015–2020) and its surrounding areas has been lowered possibly because of the SNWDP-MR. This study shows how multi-mission satellite earth observation products can be combined to monitor water resources at a regional scale and provide spatio-temporally resolved estimates of the impacts of human-induced changes in the inland water cycle.
Highlights
Northern China, and the North China Plain (NCP), is one of the world’s most water-scarce regions because domestic, industrial, and agricultural water consumption exceeds natural renewable water resources availability (Vorosmarty et al, 2010)
total water storage (TWS) refers to the terrestrial water storage, and the three main components, i.e., surface water storage (SWS), Soil moisture water storage (SMS), and Groundwater storage (GWS), are calculated through the following steps: (1) Monthly TWS is derived from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)/GRACE-FO. (2) SWS can be estimated by summing the volume changes of all lakes and reservoirs in NCP
Five different GRACE TWS anomaly (TWSA) products are utilized in this study: (1) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) mass concentration solutions (Watkins et al, 2015; Wiese et al, 2018); (2) CSR mascon solutions (Save et al, 2016); (3) three spherical harmonic coefficients (SHC) from CSR, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and JPL (Landerer and Swenson, 2012; Swenson and Wahr, 2006)
Summary
Northern China, and the North China Plain (NCP), is one of the world’s most water-scarce regions because domestic, industrial, and agricultural water consumption exceeds natural renewable water resources availability (Vorosmarty et al, 2010). Many water resources management measures have been promoted and implemented, and they are essential to alleviate the problems of insufficient water availability in the NCP (Jiang, 2009). SNWDP is noticeable among these water management strategies because it is the largest physical water transfer project in China. It di verts water from the Yangtze River Basin to the water-deficient North, aiming at curbing the water shortage there (Liu et al, 2019). Since SNWDP Middle Route (SNWDP-MR) opening in December 2014, over
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