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Assessment of future groundwater levels using Visual MODFLOW in the Gomti River basin in India

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Abstract

Groundwater is an important resource for a multitude of purposes, and change in groundwater levels is an important factor in determining the increase and decrease of groundwater quantity in aquifers. This study has been carried out for Gomti River basin, where groundwater is the major drinking water source for the entire region. This paper evaluates the behavior of the groundwater levels using Visual MODFLOW under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. For modeling of groundwater flow, the entire study area was discretized into 108480 (X-direction) and 207090 (Y-direction) gridal network with each cell size of 1000 m × 1000 m. The model was calibrated for the period 2002 to 2008 and validated for the period 2009 to 2013 using data of 24 observation wells. During the calibration period of Visual MODFLOW, residual mean ranged between 0.658 and 0.268 m, and absolute residual mean ranged between 2.035 and 2.174 m. The calibrated Visual MODFLOW model was employed to evaluate the influence of climate change on future groundwater levels. Future groundwater recharge (2020–2030), obtained after the application of four (MIROC-ESM, MIROC-ESM-CHEM, MIROC MIROC5, and MOHC-HADGEM2-ES) global climate model (GCM) data into prior SWAT model, was applied to Visual MODFLOW. After applying, the projected future (2020–2030) trend in the groundwater levels was found continuously decreasing due to low groundwater recharge and excessive groundwater withdrawal in the basin in future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this paper would like to thank the Bhujal Bhawan, Central Groundwater Board, North Region, Lucknow, for providing the necessary hydro-geological data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, 247667, Uttarakhand, India

    Biswajit Das, Surjeet Singh & Sanjay K. Jain

  2. Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, 247667, Uttarakhand, India

    Biswajit Das

  3. Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, 248001, Uttarakhand, India

    Praveen Thakur

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  1. Biswajit Das
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Contributions

Biswajit Das: data collection, analysis, and preparation of the manuscript. Surjeet Singh, Praveen Thakur, and Sanjay K. Jain: conceptualizations, supervision, and preparation of the manuscript. All authors have contributed to finalizing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Biswajit Das.

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Das, B., Singh, S., Thakur, P. et al. Assessment of future groundwater levels using Visual MODFLOW in the Gomti River basin in India. Theor Appl Climatol 155, 2917–2936 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04795-5

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