Water Quality and Sediment Behaviour of the Future: Predictions for the 21st Century (Proceedings of Symposium HS2005 at IUGG2007, Perugia, July 2007).  IAHS Publ. 314, 2007, 278-285

 

The assessment of groundwater vulnerability in China

 

TANG LIHUA1,2, ZHANG SICONG1 & YAO WENFENG1

1 Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

   tanglh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

2 State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

 

Abstract China is one of the countries suffering severely from water shortage. Its water availability per capita is only 25% of the world average. According to new statistics for 2000–2002, the fresh groundwater resource is about 883.7 billion m3, which amounts to 33% of the total water resources in China. Moreover, groundwater plays an important role in water supply. Nearly 20% of the total water consumption is from groundwater, especially in northern China where the percentage of supply from groundwater exceeds 50%, and in some cases even up to 80%. With such a great degree of exploitation, as well as excessive development, many environmental problems have been caused, such as groundwater pollution and overexploitation, which greatly affect humans. In order to further understand the characteristics of groundwater quantity and quality, and to protect groundwater resources, a research assessment of groundwater vulnerability for the whole of China was carried out during the second Comprehensive National Water Resources Planning (CNWRP) exercise that commenced in 2002. Based on abundant data and GIS technology, an integrated assessment model was developed and applied to evaluate the groundwater vulnerability. The results show trends of increasing groundwater vulnerability from north to south, as well as from west to east. Terrain slope, shallow groundwater depth and aquifer media are the three most dominant factors influencing groundwater vulnerability in China as a whole.

 

Key words assessment of groundwater vulnerability; integrated assessment model; GIS