Rational allocation of water resources based on ecological groundwater levels:a case study in Jinghui Irrigation District in China

Abstract

Aimed at the hydrogeological environmental problems caused by over-exploitation and unreasonable utilization of water resources in Jinghui Irrigation District, this paper discusses the ecological groundwater level of the study area and establishes a three-layer optimal allocation model of water resources based on the theory of large scale systems. Then, the genetic algorithm method was employed to optimize the model and obtain the optimal allocation of crop irrigation schedule and water resources under the condition of a 75% assurance rate. Finally, the numerical simulation model of the groundwater was applied to analyze the balance of the groundwater on the basis of the optimal allocation scheme. The results show that the upper limitation of the ecological groundwater in Jinghui Irrigation District ranged from 1.8m to 4.2m, while the lower limitation level ranged from 8m to 28m. By 2020, the condition of the groundwater imbalance that results from adopting the optimal allocation scheme will be much better than that caused by current water utilization scheme. With the exception of only a few areas, the groundwater level in most parts of Jinghui Irrigation District will not exceed the lower limitation of ecological groundwater level.