A century of groundwater accumulation in Pakistan and northwest India

MacAllister, D.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8893-9634; Krishan, G.; Basharat, M.; Cuba, D.; MacDonald, A.M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6636-1499. 2022 A century of groundwater accumulation in Pakistan and northwest India. Nature Geoscience, 15. 390-396. 10.1038/s41561-022-00926-1

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Abstract/Summary

The groundwater systems of northwest India and central Pakistan are among the most heavily exploited in the world. However, recent, and well-documented, groundwater depletion has not been historically contextualized. Here, using a long-term observation-well dataset, we present a regional analysis of post-monsoon groundwater levels from 1900 to 2010. We show that human activity in the early twentieth century increased groundwater availability before large-scale exploitation began in the late twentieth century. Net groundwater accumulation in the twentieth century, calculated in areas with sufficient data, was at least 420 km3 at ~3.6 cm yr–1. The development of the region’s vast irrigation canal network, which increased groundwater recharge, played a defining role in twentieth-century groundwater accumulation. Between 1970 and 2000, groundwater levels stabilized because of the contrasting effects of above-average rainfall and the onset of tubewell development for irrigation. Due to a combination of low rainfall and increased tubewell development, approximately 70 km3 of groundwater was lost at ~2.8 cm yr–1 in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Our results demonstrate how human and climatic drivers have combined to drive historical groundwater trends.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1038/s41561-022-00926-1
ISSN:	1752-0894
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	A read only version of the publisher pdf can be viewed at https://rdcu.be/cLP6n
Additional Keywords:	GroundwaterBGS, Groundwater
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date made live:	28 Apr 2022 12:28 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532564

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