Abstract
Groundwater is one of the substantial sources of freshwater and plays an important role in sustaining the biodiversity of the Himalayas. However, with the limited availability of surface water resources due to global warming and anthropogenic practices, groundwater resource is under the severe threat of reduction and contamination. Hence, it becomes a prerequisite to study the stable isotope composition revealing the spatiotemporal dynamics of groundwater recharge in the Dras sub-basin of Upper Indus River Basin (UIRB), India, to understand the controls of physiographic and hydrometeorological processes. The isotopic values of groundwater showed wide spatial and temporal variance suggesting the dominant effect of physiographic and meteorological conditions. The slope and intercept of groundwater [δ2H = 8.7(±1.8) × δ18O + 26 (±2.6) R2 = 0.81; p = 0.001] are higher than local meteoric waterline and global meteoric waterline of precipitation but similar to snow and glaciers. The study indicated that groundwater recharge is mainly controlled by meltwater derived from high-altitude snow and glaciers. The study further suggested that climate warming, variation in precipitation pattern, form, and continuous glacier mass loss may negatively impact the groundwater resources of the region.
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Lone, S.A., Jeelani, G. (2023). Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Groundwater Recharge in Dras Sub-Basin of Upper Indus River Basin, Western Himalayas. In: Thambidurai, P., Dikshit, A.K. (eds) Impacts of Urbanization on Hydrological Systems in India. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21618-3_16
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