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Long-term sustainability of groundwater resources in the central Ganga Alluvial Plain, India: Study from Gomti River Basin

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Abstract

Groundwater is the major primary source of drinking and irrigation water for nearly 500 million inhabitants in both rural and urban areas of the Ganga Alluvial Plain (GAP) in India. Indiscriminate pumping of groundwater primarily from the shallow parts of the alluvial aquifer system is leading to rapid decline in water tables. It is expected that in coming years, the stress on groundwater will only increase due to steadily rising urbanization and additional demands for water and land, as well as by impending weather anomalies and shifts in availability of water during seasons when demands for irrigation and ecological needs are high. In the present study, Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation method is used using pre- and post-monsoon groundwater levels from 764 observatory wells and peizometers to assess the trends of declining groundwater in the Gomti River Basin (GRB) during 2005 to 2015. Groundwater potential zone maps were composed using water depths data and Cartosat-1 satellite images delineating the area under rising and falling groundwater tables. The loss of shallow groundwater was clearly visible during the 2005–2015 periods. The decline is attributed to intensive irrigation from groundwater as well as peri-urban growth around the state capital. This study can apprise the planners and local administrators of the effects of irrigation and urbanization on the groundwater regime in the fast growing regions of the basin.

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Acknowledgement

Funding from the Policy Research Cell, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India (DST/PRC/CPR-04/2014) is greatly acknowledged. The authors would also like to thank Ground Water Department, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh for providing the data.

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  1. Department of Environmental Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, 226 025, India

    Urvashi Sharma & Venkatesh Dutta

  2. DST Centre for Policy Research, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, 226 025, India

    Adeeba Khan & Venkatesh Dutta

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  1. Urvashi Sharma
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Sharma, U., Khan, A. & Dutta, V. Long-term sustainability of groundwater resources in the central Ganga Alluvial Plain, India: Study from Gomti River Basin. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 16015–16037 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01325-z

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