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Groundwater Storage Variation Characteristics in North China before and after the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Based on GRACE and GPS Data

  • WATER RESOURCES AND THE REGIME OF WATER BODIES
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Abstract

The North China Plain (NCP) has been in a state of groundwater depletion for a long time, which led to a widespread vertical ground subsidence. To reveal the groundwater storage (GWS) variation characteristics in NCP in recent years, this paper uses Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its Follow-On RL06 monthly gravity solutions to obtain the terrestrial water storage (TWS) changes in NCP (February 2011 to March 2021) and subtract the hydrological components from Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS). Thus, the GWS decline rate was revealed at long-term rate of ‒2.94 cm/year and changes in 2013 and 2015. The groundwater depletion rate of ‒0.18 cm/year from 2011 to 2013, accelerated to ‒3.91 cm/year from 2013 to 2015, and the rate of GWS eased to ‒3.02 cm/year from 2015 to March 2021. The vertical displacements obtained by solving the Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) observations reveal a significant relief trend of surface subsidence at some stations after the Middle Route Project (MRP) completion. As well combined the special geological conditions of the basement type of CGPS stations (bedrock or sediment), and the overall vertical displacement of the east central plain (ECP) and the piedmont plain (PP) was calculated respectively using the Thiessen polygon approach. Correlation analysis between vertical displacements and GWS timeseries was performed, with Pearson correlation coefficients (PR) of 0.89 and ‒0.74, respectively. The GWS changes of the ECP were further correlated with the vertical displacement changes of the four sediment CGPS stations distributed in the southern part of the ECP. The results showed that the PR of three sediment stations, HECX, TJBH and TJWQ, were all around 0.85, and the vertical displacements of the three stations are consistent with groundwater depletion. All these indicate that the depletion of groundwater has affected the surface subsidence rate to some extent, and the vertical displacement changes of sediment stations can be used to infer the depletion of GWS.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study is funded by Open Research Fund Program of Hunan Province Key Laboratory of Safe Mining Techniques of Coal Mines (Hunan University of Science and Technology) under Grant E22015, by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 42 004 001, by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 42 104 019, by Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province, China under Grant 2108085QD176.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, 230009, Hefei, China

    Tingye Tao, Guangkuo Xie, Rong He, Zhengguang Tao, Min Ma, Fei Gao, Yongchao Zhu, Xiaochuan Qu & Shuiping Li

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  1. Tingye Tao
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  2. Guangkuo Xie
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  3. Rong He
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Correspondence to Tingye Tao or Guangkuo Xie.

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Tao, T., Xie, G., He, R. et al. Groundwater Storage Variation Characteristics in North China before and after the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Based on GRACE and GPS Data. Water Resour 50, 58–67 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0097807823010153

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