Tracking hidden crisis in India’s capital from space: implications of unsustainable groundwater use

AbstractNational Capital Region (NCR, Delhi) in India is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan cities which is facing a severe water crisis due to increasing water demand. The over-extraction of groundwater, particularly from its unconsolidated alluvial deposits makes the region prone to subsidence. In this study, we investigated the effects of plummeting groundwater levels on land surface elevations in Delhi NCR using Sentinel-1 datasets acquired during the years 2014–2020. Our analysis reveals two distinct subsidence features in the study area with rates exceeding 11 cm/year in Kapashera—an urban village near IGI airport Delhi, and 3 cm/year in Faridabad throughout the study period. The subsidence in these two areas are accelerating and follows the depleting groundwater trend. The third region, Dwarka shows a shift from subsidence to uplift during the years which can be attributed to the strict government policies to regulate groundwater use and incentivizing rainwater harvesting. Further analysis using a classified risk map based on hazard risk and vulnerability approach highlights an approximate area of 100 square kilometers to be subjected to the highest risk level of ground movement, demanding urgent attention. The findings of this study are highly relevant for government agencies to formulate new policies against the over-exploitation of groundwater and to facilitate a sustainable and resilient groundwater management system in Delhi NCR.

Download Full-text

Risk of Ground Movement in Faridabad, India – Investigated using Remote Sensing and In-Situ Data

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15694 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shagun Garg ◽

Vamshi Karanam ◽

Mahdi Motagh ◽

Indu Jayaluxmi

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

High Risk ◽

Population Density ◽

Land Surface ◽

Underground Water ◽

Ground Movement ◽

Geographical Information ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

In Situ Data

Land surface elevation changes can cause damage to infrastructure and other resources; thus, its monitoring is crucial for the safety and economics of the city. Long-term excessive extraction of underground water is one of the factors that causes ground to sink. Faridabad, the industrial hub of Haryana, a state in north India is staring a severe water crisis in the near future and has already been declared as a dark zone with regard to groundwater resources. At many places, the underground water table has dropped more than 150m. The plummeting groundwater levels and the geology of this region make it prone to subsidence.Continuous monitoring of land surface elevations using traditional surveying techniques can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Several studies have shown the potential of remote sensing techniques in monitoring the changes in topography to an mm level accuracy. In this study, we used the elevation change map (derived using 200+ sentinel -1 images), subsidence gradient, groundwater in-situ data, population, population density, land cover, and lithology. These information were then processed and analyzed in a geographical information system to perform a hazard vulnerability and risk assessment. The final risk map was classified into three different classes viz high, medium, and low risk pertaining to ground movement.The results indicate that the high-risk zone covers an area of more than 2.5 square kilometers. New Industrial Town (NIT) in Faridabad with an estimated population of more than 1.5 million, is found to be at high risk of ground movement. Groundwater levels in this area are currently depleting by more than 5m/year. Some other areas which are under high risk are the Dabua colony, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Nagar, and Gandhi colony. All these regions have a high population density and demand urgent government attention.

Download Full-text

STUDY OF POND STATUS IN INDIA : A REVIEW

FLORA AND FAUNA ◽

10.33451/florafauna.v23i1pp99-104 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

Author(s):

V.K. YADAV ◽

SONAM SHARMA ◽

A.K. SRIVASTAVA ◽

P.K. KHARE

Keyword(s):

Fresh Water ◽

Land Surface ◽

Human Population ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Hydrological Cycle ◽

Habitat Destruction ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Human Use ◽

Over Exploitation

Ponds are an important fresh water critical ecosystem for plants and animals providing goods and services including food, fodder, fish, irrigation, hydrological cycle, shelter, medicine, culture, aesthetic and recreation. Ponds cover less than 2 percent of worlds land surface. Ponds are important source of fresh water for human use. These are threatened by urbanization, industrialization, over exploitation, fragmentation, habitat destruction, pollution, illegal capturing of land and climate changes. These above factors have been destroying ponds very rapidly putting them in danger of extinction of a great number of local biodiversity. It is necessary to formulate a correct conservation strategy for pond restoration in order to meet the growing needs of fresh water by increasing the human population. Some measures have been compiled and proposed in the present review.

Download Full-text

Dominant urban form and its relation to nighttime land surface temperature in the rapidly urbanizing National Capital Region of India

Urban Climate ◽

10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 40 ◽

pp. 101002

Author(s):

Saurav Chakraborty ◽

Suvamoy Pramanik ◽

Alexander Follmann ◽

Biswajit Giri ◽

Biswajit Mondal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface ◽

Urban Form ◽

National Capital Region ◽

Capital Region ◽

National Capital

Download Full-text

The use of groundwater crustacean communities as indicators for aquifers quality in the semi-arid region of north-central Chile

ARPHA Conference Abstracts ◽

10.3897/aca.1.e30126 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Author(s):

Sanda Iepure ◽

Nicolas Gouin ◽

Angeline Bertin ◽

Ana Camacho ◽

Antonio González-Ramón ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Negative Impact ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Nutrient Loads ◽

Groundwater Temperature ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Water Abstraction ◽

Over Exploitation ◽

The Impact ◽

Semi Arid

Chile has large extensions of arid and semi-arid regions throughout the whole country, where the intensive demands and use of water resources, especially groundwater for irrigations and mining activities, increased dramatically over the last decades. The aquifer depletions due to water abstraction for irrigation and nutrient loads, exert major alterations of water quality, groundwater recharge and the natural renewal rate. All these factors diminish the aquifer value for the users and contribute to the degradation of groundwater as environment and habitat for fauna. This intensive use of groundwater resources in Chile brought to significant social and economic benefits, but their inadequate management resulted in negative environmental, legal and socioeconomic consequences. In this study, we aimed at providing a first assessment of environmental alterations of groundwater ecosystems from agricultural watersheds in northern Chile by specifically evaluating the effects of nitrogen and pesticide loads on groundwater communities and identifing the ecosystem service alterations due to agricultural activities. The study has been performed in a glacial aquifer from Coquimbo region; 250 km north of Santiago de Chile, the floodplain of which is dominated by agriculture (fruits tress, vineyards). Due to low regional precipitations (100-240 mm/year) the aquifer is primarily recharged by snowmelt from the Andean chain and surface runoff. The relative groundwater levels, groundwater temperature, chemical analysis of nitrogen and total phosphorus and pesticide concentrations were examined, along with the evaluation of crustacean biodiversity and spatial distribution pattern. Stygofauna taxonomic richness and the presence of stygobites have been related more to groundwater level stability than to chemical water parameters indicating that over-exploitation has a negative impact on habitat suitability for groundwater invertebrates. Groundwater biota assessment is essential in understanding the impact produced by agriculture activities on groundwater as a resource and as ecosystem, a nexus that becomes more and more widely recognized. The rationale and the preliminary results of this study are summarized in the Suppl. material 1.

Download Full-text

Management of groundwater in the Nobi Plain that modeled groundwater use for earthquake disasters and environmental preservation

Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences ◽

10.5194/piahs-382-727-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 382 ◽

pp. 727-731

Author(s):

Kenji Daito

Keyword(s):

Land Subsidence ◽

Flow Analysis ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Underground Water ◽

Environmental Preservation ◽

Groundwater Use ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Set Up ◽

The 1960S ◽

Effective Use

Abstract. The pumped discharge of groundwater increased rapidly in Japan during the period of fast economic growth since the beginning of the 1960s. As a result, land subsidence has been observed, including throughout the Nobi Plain. Laws have led to restrictions on the collection of underground water, and pumped discharge has gradually reduced. In recent years, the groundwater level that had formerly decreased has begun to rise again, leading to less land subsidence. However, as groundwater levels rise, the occurrence of new problems is feared, such as the danger posed by liquefaction. In this study, an analysis was conducted on the changes in the state of groundwater based on future groundwater-use scenarios and forecasts of land subsidence. This involved thinking about the effective use of groundwater to prevent excessive rises in groundwater levels, using a three-dimensional groundwater-flow analysis and a perpendicular one-dimensional subsidence consolidation analysis. As a result, it was shown that it would be beneficial to use groundwater as a means of continuous environmental preservation and as the water resource at the earthquake disaster. At this time new wells were set up at the refuge of the disaster specified in the Nobi Plain. And the remarkable land subsidence was not caused by pumped discharge.

Download Full-text

Stability assessment of roadbed affected by ground subsidence adjacent to urban railways

10.5194/nhess-2017-412 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Ki-Young Eum ◽

Young-Kon Park ◽

Sang-Soo Jeon

Keyword(s):

South Korea ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Ground Surface ◽

Ground Subsidence ◽

Risk Level ◽

Train Derailment ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Modeling Software ◽

Ground Conditions

Abstract. In recent years, leakages in aged pipelines for water and sewage in urban areas have frequently induced ground loss resulting in cavities. One third of the pipelines buried in Seoul city in South Korea are more than fifty years old. Train loadings and change in groundwater levels in the undiscerned development of urban areas induce roadbed settlements. Train derailment may occur as the roadbed exceeds the allowable settlements associated with location and size of the cavity adjacent to the roadbed. In this study, FLAC3D, which is a three-dimensional finite-difference numerical modeling software, is used to do stability and risk level assessment for the roadbed in adjacent to urban railways with respect to various groundwater levels and the geometric characteristics of cavities. Numerical results show that the roadbed settlements in simulated ground conditions in South Korea, that satisfy the allowable values for a cavity of diameter of 10 m exists adjacent to the roadbed. The distance between the center of the roadbed and the center of the cavity should be greater than 25 m and the groundwater level should be greater than 22 m below the ground surface.

Download Full-text

GROUNDWATER STORAGE CHANGE ESTIMATION USING GRACE SATELLITE DATA IN INDUS BASIN

Big Data In Water Resources Engineering (BDWRE) ◽

10.26480/bdwre.01.2020.10.15 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 10-15

Author(s):

Muhammad Salam ◽

Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema ◽

Wanchang Zhang ◽

Saddam Hussain ◽

Azeem Khan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Table ◽

Land Surface ◽

Large Scale ◽

Water Storage ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Groundwater Storage ◽

Grace Satellite ◽

Over Exploitation ◽

Flooding Events ◽

Storage Change

Over exploitation of Ground Water (GW) has resulted in lowering of water table in the Indus Basin. While waterlogging, salinity and seawater intrusion has resulted in rising of water table in Indus Basin. The sparse piezometer network cannot provide sufficient data to map groundwater changes spatially. To estimate groundwater change in this region, data from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite was used. GRACE measures (Total Water Storage) TWS and used to estimate groundwater storage change. Net change in storage of groundwater was estimated from the change in TWS by including the additional components such as Soil Moisture (SM), Surface water storage (Qs) and snowpack equivalent water (SWE). For the estimation of these components Global Land Data Assimilation system (GLDAS) Land Surface Models (LSMs) was used. Both GRACE and GLDAS produce results for the Indus Basin for the period of April 2010 to January 2017. The monitoring well water-level records from the Scarp Monitoring Organization (SMO) and the Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA) from April 2009 to December 2016 were used. The groundwater results from different combinations of GRACE products GFZ (GeoforschungsZentrum Potsdam) CSR (Center for Space Research at University of Texas, Austin) JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and GLDAS LSMs (CLM, NOAH and VIC) are calibrated (April 2009-2014) and validated (April 2015-April 2016) with in-situ measurements. For yearly scale, their correlation coefficient reaches 0.71 with Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) 0.82. It was estimated that net loss in groundwater storage is at mean rate of 85.01 mm per year and 118,668.16 Km3 in the 7 year of study period (April 2010-Jan 2017). GRACE TWS data were also able to pick up the signals from the large-scale flooding events observed in 2010 and 2014. These flooding events played a significant role in the replenishment of the groundwater system in the Indus Basin. Our study indicates that the GRACE based estimation of groundwater storage changes is skillful enough to provide monthly updates on the trend of the groundwater storage changes for resource managers and policy makers of Indus Basin.

Download Full-text

LANDSCAPE GEOMORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION AND COASTAL CHANGES: A CASE STUDY OF COASTAL EVOLUTION IN THE WESTERN PATRAIKOS GULF AREA, WESTERN GREECE

Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece ◽

10.12681/bgsg.11742 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 415

Author(s):

G. Alevizos ◽

L. Stamatopoulos

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Archaeological Site ◽

Close Correlation ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Alluvial Deposits ◽

Coastal Evolution ◽

Relative Chronology ◽

Surface Development ◽

Geomorphological Evolution

Geological and geomorphological research has been carried out in the western part of the south coast of Patraikos Gulf and the findings were studied in relation to archaeological remains found in the same area. The characteristics of the archaeological findings and the stratigraphical record and the deposits in which they are contained, may originate their source, transportation way and age. The artifacts were contained in fluvial and alluvial deposits under the present land surface. Their age was estimated by archaeologists to be between 7th century BC and 4th century AC. Geomorphology and archaeology have strong historical and methodological links and can provide information about the processes and extent of environmental changes. They also provide the tools for analysing sedimentation rates, relative chronology and geomorphological evaluation of the particular archaeological site as well as clues for land-surface development, paleoenvironmental and climatic conditions. Sediments indicating considerable climatic changes in current humid areas are alluvial deposits of considerable thickness, covering areas with human activity. There is a close correlation, as shown by the archaeological findings between climatic and environmental fluctuations. Since when there is a transition in climatic conditions causing changes in hydrologic conditions with ensuing geomorphological instability and burying the structures

Download Full-text

Groundwater Level Change Management on Control of Land Subsidence Supported by Borehole Extensometer Compaction Measurements in the Houston-Galveston Region, Texas

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences9050223 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 223 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yi Liu ◽

Jiang Li ◽

Zheng N. Fang

Keyword(s):

Change Management ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Groundwater Level ◽

Land Surface ◽

Groundwater Withdrawal ◽

Overburden Pressure ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Level Change ◽

Aquifer Systems ◽

Groundwater Level Change

As much as 3.05 m of land subsidence was observed in 1979 in the Houston-Galveston region as a result primarily of inelastic compaction of aquitards in the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers between 1937 and 1979. The preconsolidation pressure heads for aquitards within these two aquifers were continuously updated in response to lowering groundwater levels, which in turn was caused by continuously increasing groundwater withdrawal rates from 0.57 to 4.28 million m3/day. This land subsidence occurred without any management of changes in groundwater levels. However, the management of recovering groundwater levels from 1979 to 2000 successfully decreased inelastic compaction from about 40 mm/yr in the early 1980s to zero around 2000 through decreasing groundwater withdrawal rates from 4.3 to 3.0 million m3/day. The inelastic consolidation that had existed for about 63 years roughly from 1937 to 2000 caused a land subsidence hazard in this region. Some rebounding of the land surface was achieved from groundwater level recovering management. It is found in this paper that subsidence of 0.08 to 8.49 mm/yr owing to a pseudo-constant secondary consolidation rate emerged or tended to emerge at 13 borehole extensometer station locations while the groundwater levels in the two aquifers were being managed. It is considered to remain stable in trend since 2000. The subsidence due to the secondary consolidation is beyond the control of any groundwater level change management schemes because it is caused by geo-historical overburden pressure on the two aquifers. The compaction measurements collected from the 13 extensometers since 1971 not only successfully corroborate the need for groundwater level change management in controlling land subsidence but also yield the first empirical findings of the occurrence of secondary consolidation subsidence in the Quaternary and Tertiary aquifer systems in the Houston-Galveston region.

Download Full-text

Clustering Groundwater Level Time Series of the Exploited Almonte-Marismas Aquifer in Southwest Spain

Water ◽

10.3390/w12041063 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 1063

Author(s):

Nuria Naranjo-Fernández ◽

Carolina Guardiola-Albert ◽

Héctor Aguilera ◽

Carmen Serrano-Hidalgo ◽

Esperanza Montero-González

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Management Plans ◽

Distribution Parameters ◽

Hydrodynamic Disturbance ◽

Over Exploitation ◽

Hydrodynamic Behaviors ◽

Guadalquivir River

Groundwater resources are regularly the principal water supply in semiarid and arid climate areas. However, groundwater levels (GWL) in semiarid aquifers are suffering a general decrease because of anthropic exploitation of aquifers and the repercussions of climate change. Effective groundwater management strategies require a deep characterization of GWL fluctuations, in order to identify individual behaviors and triggering factors. In September 2019, the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority (CHG) declared that there was over-exploitation in three of the five groundwater bodies of the Almonte-Marismas aquifer, Southwest Spain. For that reason, it is critical to understand GWL dynamics in this aquifer before the new Spanish Water Resources Management Plans (2021–2027) are developed. The application of GWL series clustering in hydrogeology has grown over the past few years, as it is an extraordinary tool that promptly provides a GWL classification; each group can be related to different responses of a complex aquifer under any external change. In this work, GWL time series from 160 piezometers were analyzed for the period 1975 to 2016 and, after data pre-processing, 24 piezometers were selected for clustering with k-means (static) and time series (dynamic) clustering techniques. Six and seven groups (k) were chosen to apply k-means. Six characterized types of hydrodynamic behaviors were obtained with time series clustering (TSC). Number of clusters were related to diverse affections of water exploitation depending on soil uses and hydrogeological spatial distribution parameters. TSC enabled us to distinguish local areas with high hydrodynamic disturbance and to highlight a quantitative drop of GWL during the studied period.

Download Full-text