Trends in groundwater changes driven by precipitation and anthropogenic activities on the southeast side of the Hu Line

Abstract

Groundwater resources consumption and management play a crucial role in food-energy- water nexus. However, the trends in groundwater storage variability and its attribution remain unclear because of the combined effects of climatic and anthropogenic terms. Here we use satellites and monitoring well observations to reveal the trends in groundwater storage change (GWSC), which exhibits geographical heterogeneity over the southeast side of the Hu Line in China during 1979–2012. The GWSC in northern China showed a slight decrease from 1979 to 1997, and the declining pattern extended to surrounding regions from 1998 to 2012. A considerable fraction of the GWSC trend can be attributed jointly to precipitation variations and human water usage. The anthropogenic factors that are primarily associated with socioeconomic development contribute to ∼31% of the variability in GWSC. Water management policies carried out in recent years reasonably explain the recovery of GWSC across regions with declining groundwater in 2013–2019. A positive trend in GWSC is further projected (2020–2029), though with uncertainties.