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Groundwater simulation for efficient water resources management in Zhangye Oasis, Northwest China

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Abstract

Human activities, especially groundwater exploitation for agricultural production, have resulted in an excessive decline of the groundwater level and posed a serious threat of aquifer overdraft in the arid and semi-arid region of northwest China. For the purpose of managing water resources effectively, this study applied the Visual MODFLOW package to simulate the aquifer changes under various agricultural scenarios from 2009 to 2018 in Zhangye Oasis, the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China. In addition to current conditions, limited irrigation and channel leakage prevention, which represent the essential trend of today’s irrigation, were set as future water-saving agricultural scenarios. As the results show, under current water resource management conditions, groundwater levels fall at an alarming rate of 1 m/year in irrigation areas and 0.2 m/year in non-irrigation areas; moreover, the annual groundwater budget in the oasis will be −7.64 × 108 m3. In addition, taking agricultural water saving measures can alleviate the groundwater problems efficiently, and the most promising water resource management for the Zhangye oasis could be decreasing the irrigation quota and the leakage coefficient of the canal system to 80 % of the current level and 0.3, respectively. Contrast of the two optimal scenarios indicates that limited irrigation is more effective than channel leakage prevention for groundwater protection in the Zhangye Oasis.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91225301, 91425302, 91125017). The contributions of the editor and anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions significantly improved this article are also appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Agricultural Water Research in China, China Agricultural University, No.17 Qinghua East Road, Haidian, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Shilei Chen, Wei Yang, Zailin Huo & Guanhua Huang

  2. Songliao Water Resources Commission, Ministry of Water Resources, Changchun, 130021, People’s Republic of China

    Wei Yang

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  1. Shilei Chen
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  2. Wei Yang
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  3. Zailin Huo
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  4. Guanhua Huang
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Correspondence to Zailin Huo.

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Chen, S., Yang, W., Huo, Z. et al. Groundwater simulation for efficient water resources management in Zhangye Oasis, Northwest China. Environ Earth Sci 75, 647 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-5458-z

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