Effects of anthropogenic groundwater exploitation on land surface processes: A case study of the Haihe River Basin, northern China

Abstract

s u m m a r yIn this study, we incorporated a groundwater exploitation scheme into the land surface model CLM3.5 to investigate the effects of the anthropogenic exploitation of groundwater on land surface processes in a river basin. Simulations of the Haihe River Basin in northern China were conducted for the years 1965-2000 using the model. A control simulation without exploitation and three exploitation simulations with different water demands derived from socioeconomic data related to the Basin were conducted. The results showed that groundwater exploitation for human activities resulted in increased wetting and cooling effects at the land surface and reduced groundwater storage. A lowering of the groundwater table, increased upper soil moisture, reduced 2 m air temperature, and enhanced latent heat flux were detected by the end of the simulated period, and the changes at the land surface were related linearly to the water demands. To determine the possible responses of the land surface processes in extreme cases (i.e., in which the exploitation process either continued or ceased), additional hypothetical simulations for the coming 200 years with constant climate forcing were conducted, regardless of changes in climate. The simulations revealed that the local groundwater storage on the plains could not contend with high-intensity exploitation for long if the exploitation process continues at the current rate. Changes attributable to groundwater exploitation reached extreme values and then weakened within decades with the depletion of groundwater resources and the exploitation process will therefore cease. However, if exploitation is stopped completely to allow groundwater to recover, drying and warming effects, such as increased temperature, reduced soil moisture, and reduced total runoff, would occur in the Basin within the early decades of the simulation period. The effects of exploitation will then gradually disappear, and the variables will approach the natural state and stabilize at different rates. Simulations were also conducted for cases in which exploitation either continues or ceases using future climate scenario outputs from a general circulation model. The resulting trends were almost the same as those of the simulations with constant climate forcing, despite differences in the climate data input. Therefore, a balance between slow groundwater restoration and rapid human development of the land must be achieved to maintain a sustainable water resource.

Hydrological projections of future climate change over the source region of Yellow River and Yangtze River in the Tibetan Plateau: A comprehensive assessment by coupling RegCM4 and VIC model

“…As a limited area model developed and maintained by Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Pal et al, ), the RegCM model has been widely applied to many fields at different resolutions and presented good performance, such as land–atmosphere interactions (Zou et al, ), regional climate change (Fuentes‐Franco et al, ), and impacts of human activities on climate (Qin, Xie, & Wang, ). Wherein, RegCM4 (Giorgi et al, ) is a primitive equation, sigma vertical coordinate model with dynamical component derived from Mesoscale Meteorological model version 5 of the National Centre for Atmosphere Research/Pennsylvania State University (Grell, Dudhia, & Stauffer, ).…”

Global Land Surface Modeling Including Lateral Groundwater Flow

“…Conversely, groundwater accounts for 42% of irrigation, 36% of household, and 27% of manufacturing water usage worldwide (Döll et al, ). Over the past several decades, some countries including the USA, China, and India have experienced a rapid increase in groundwater exploitation to satisfy the needs of economic growth and population explosion (Döll et al, ; Rodell et al, ; Scanlon et al, ; Xie et al, ; Zou et al, , ).…”

Effects of anthropogenic water regulation and groundwater lateral flow on land processes

“…De Graaf et al [2014] used PCR-GLOBWB to show that water abstractions strongly affected water allocation and residence time. Zou et al [2014Zou et al [ , 2015 developed a groundwater allocation model that simulated anthropogenic groundwater exploitation and the subsequent application of the extracted water in agricultural, industrial and domestic uses; the groundwater model was integrated into the CLM 3.5 and the Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) to demonstrate that groundwater exploitation resulted in increased wetting and cooling effects not only at the land surface but also in the lower troposphere.…”