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Temporal and Spatial Evolution of Groundwater Natural Background Levels in a Rapid Urbanization Area, Northeast of Beijing, China

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Abstract

Understanding the groundwater natural background levels (NBLs) is important in distinguishing groundwater contamination and guiding the groundwater management. Groundwater environment in suburb areas around the large city may suffer from strong impact of human activity during rapid urbanization which will have significant effect on the groundwater natural background levels. Although many previous studies have proposed different methods to understand the spatial distribution of NBLs, its temporal evolution and the relationship with groundwater quality is not well understood. In this study, we investigated the long-term evolution of NBLs and groundwater hydrochemical anomalies in the 59 wells of the Pinggu basin by combining the comprehensive groundwater hydrochemical anomalies identification and groundwater quality assessment. NO3−, Cl−, and SO42− were found to be as the major chemical constitutions demonstrating the strong anomaly degree, which decreased over time. The zoning and evolution of groundwater quality also aligned with the variation of anomaly areas. Regions with a higher degree of abnormality were consistent with those with poorer groundwater quality. The impact of human activities on the groundwater environment decreased in the Pinggu basin compared to the initial years due to the efforts of environment protection and governance by the local government. Investigating the temporal and spatial variation, hydrochemical properties by combination of NBLs and groundwater quality assessment provided a useful approach to understand groundwater environment in rapidly urbanizing areas.

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Data Availability

Data used in this manuscript could be obtained by reasonable request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Beijing Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology for the great assistance provided in the field.

Funding

This study was supported by the Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment of China (2018ZX07109-002/1), Key Laboratory of Shallow Geothermal Energy, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China(KLSGE202302-03) and the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFC1801303).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, Beijing, 100043, China

    Zongwen Zhang & Ning Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of Shallow Geothermal Energy, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing, 100195, China

    Haodong Wang & Zheming Shi

  3. Hydrogeological BrigadeJiangxi Geological Bureau, Nanchang, 330046, China

    Haodong Wang

  4. School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China

    Haodong Wang & Zheming Shi

Authors
  1. Zongwen Zhang
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  2. Haodong Wang
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  3. Zheming Shi
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  4. Ning Sun
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Contributions

ZZ: Conceptualization, data analysis, methodology, and writing—original draft. HW: data analysis, formal analysis, and writing—original draft; ZS: formal analysis, writing—original draft, and writing—reviewing and editing; NS: reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Zongwen Zhang or Zheming Shi.

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Zhang, Z., Wang, H., Shi, Z. et al. Temporal and Spatial Evolution of Groundwater Natural Background Levels in a Rapid Urbanization Area, Northeast of Beijing, China. Expo Health 16, 341–355 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-023-00559-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-023-00559-8

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