Sustainability of Groundwater Resources and its Indicators (Proceedings of symposium S3 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 302, 2006, 29-34.

 

Development of groundwater sustainability indicators

 

ZHI-QIANG WANG1,2 & QIANG WU2

1       College of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Hebei University of Technology,
Tianjin 300132, People’s Republic of China

wzq.fy@163.com

2       School of Resource and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology,
Beijing 100083, People’s Republic of China

 

Abstract Sustainable management and assessment is currently becoming more and more important all over the world in order to prevent the deteriora­tion and scarcity of groundwater resources. In this paper, two systems of groundwater sustainability indicators are proposed for sustainable assessment and management of groundwater. These relate to safety status warnings regarding groundwater exploitation and to the bearing capacity of the groundwater environment. Each system establishes two assessment models based on four and eight indicators. These two indicator systems are demonstrated to be practical through discussion of two case studies.

 

Key words  bearing capacity of the groundwater environment; environmentally negative effects; safety status warning for groundwater exploitation; sustainability indicators