Abstract
Groundwater is crucial for economic development in arid and semiarid areas. The Shiyang River Basin (SRB) has the most prominent water use issues in northwestern China, and overexploited groundwater resources have led to continuous groundwater-level decline. The key governance planning project of the SRB was issued in 2007. This paper synthetically combines remote-sensing data from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data and precipitation, actual evapotranspiration, land use, and in situ groundwater-level data to evaluate groundwater storage variations on a regional scale. Terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) and groundwater storage anomalies (GWSA), in addition to their influencing factors in the SRB since the implementation of the key governance project, are analyzed in order to evaluate the effect of governance. The results show that GRACE-derived GWS variations are consistent with in situ observation data in the basin, with a correlation coefficient of 0.68. The GWS in the SRB had a slow downward trend from 2003 to 2016, and this increased by 0.38 billion m³/year after 2018. As the meteorological data did not change significantly, the changes in water storage are mainly caused by human activities, which are estimated by using the principle of water balance. The decline in GWS in the middle and lower reaches of the SRB has been curbed since 2009 and has gradually rebounded since 2014. GWS decreased by 2.2 mm EWH (equivalent water height) from 2011 to 2016, which was 91% lower than that from 2007 to 2010. The cropland area in the middle and lower reaches of the SRB also stopped increasing after 2011 and gradually decreased after 2014, while the area of natural vegetation gradually increased, indicating that the groundwater level and associated ecology significantly recovered after the implementation of the project.
Highlights
Aquifers are the world’s third largest reservoir of water resources after oceans and the cryosphere, and the largest liquid freshwater reservoir
To project of the Shiyang River Basin in 2007, this article studied the changes in terrestrial project of the Shiyang River Basin in 2007, this article studied the changes in terrestrial water and groundwater storage from 2003 to 2019
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)-Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) data were used to quantitatively evaluate the changes in groundwater storage before and after the Shiyang River Basin (SRB) key quantitatively evaluate the changes in groundwater storage before and after the SRB key management project
Summary
Aquifers are the world’s third largest reservoir of water resources after oceans and the cryosphere, and the largest liquid freshwater reservoir. Depletion of groundwater resources limits the sustainable development of the regional economy, and increases energy consumption because of the need for more
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