Depleting groundwater – an opportunity for flood storage? A case study from part of the Ganges River basin, India

Storing excess rainwater underground can become key in mitigating the frequency and magnitude of flood events. In this context, assessment of depleted groundwater storage that can be refilled in water surplus periods is imperative. The study uses Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data to identify variations in groundwater storage in the monsoonal Ramganga River basin (tributary of the Ganges, with an area of 32,753 km2) in India, over the 9-year period of 2002–2010. Results indicate that basin groundwater storage is depleting at the rate of 1.6 bill. m3 yr−1. This depleted aquifer volume can be used to store floodwater effectively – up to 76% of the rainfall on average across the Ramganga with a maximum of 94% in parts of the basin. However, the major management challenge is to find and introduce technical and policy interventions to augment recharge rates to capture excess water, at required scales.

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Estimation of Groundwater Storage Variations in Indus River Basin Using Grace Data

ICASSP 2021 - 2021 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) ◽

10.1109/icassp39728.2021.9413591 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yahya Sattar ◽

Zubair Khalid

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Indus River ◽

Groundwater Storage ◽

Grace Data ◽

Indus River Basin

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INCOSE Practitioners Challenge 2019: Clean Water and Sanitation in the Ganges River Basin

Insight ◽

10.1002/inst.12256 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 28-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Omar El‐Haloush ◽

Stephen Powley ◽

Yash Kaushik ◽

David Flanigan ◽

Joseph Sitomer

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Clean Water ◽

Ganges River ◽

Water And Sanitation ◽

The Ganges ◽

Ganges River Basin

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A framework to understand gender and structural vulnerability to climate change in the Ganges River Basin: lessons from Bangladesh, India and Nepal

10.5337/2014.230 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

F. Sugden ◽

S. de Silva ◽

F. Clement ◽

N. Maskey-Amatya ◽

V. Ramesh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Structural Vulnerability ◽

Ganges River ◽

Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽

The Ganges ◽

Ganges River Basin

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Hydro-geochemical evaluation of groundwater for irrigation in the Ganges river basin areas of Bangladesh

10.21203/rs.3.rs-161359/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Md Shajedul Islam ◽

Md. Golam Mostafa

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

River Basin ◽

Irrigation Water ◽

Anthropogenic Sources ◽

Total Hardness ◽

Water Type ◽

Irrigation Water Quality ◽

Ganges River ◽

The Ganges ◽

Ganges River Basin

Abstract Groundwater is a vital source of irrigation water, and it provides over 80% of the irrigated water supply in Bangladesh. The study aimed to assess the status of irrigation water of the Ganges river basin areas in the middle-west part of Bangladesh through the hydrogeochemical characterization and classification of groundwater. The study parameters were pH, EC, TDS, Ca2+, Mg2+, total hardness, Na+, K+, B, Cl−, HCO3 −, SO 42−, NO3 −, and PO43− along with irrigation water quality index (IWQindex), Na%, soluble sodium percentage, sodium adsorption ratio, residual sodium bicarbonate, magnesium adsorption ratio, permeability index, and Kelley’s ratio. The results showed that most of the water samples were acidic in the pre-monsoon and alkaline in the post-monsoon seasons, and the water type was Ca-HCO3. The significant geochemical process in the area determined was calcite and dolomite mineral dissolution, and there was no active cation exchange, and silicate weathering occurred. The statistical analyses showed that both the geogenic and anthropogenic sources were controlling the chemistry of the groundwater aquifers. Concerning irrigation water quality, the results revealed that all the quality parameters and IWQindex (32.04 to 45.39) were within the safety ranges, except for the EC and total hardness. The study results would be useful for future groundwater monitoring and management of the Ganges basin areas of Bangladesh part.

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Reviving the Ganges Water Machine: why?

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-12-8727-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (9) ◽

pp. 8727-8759 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

U. A. Amarasinghe ◽

L. Mutuwatte ◽

L. Surinaidu ◽

S. Anand ◽

S. K. Jain

Keyword(s):

Water Supply ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Use ◽

Water Demand ◽

Monsoon Season ◽

Subsurface Water ◽

Ganges River ◽

Hot Weather ◽

The Ganges ◽

Ganges River Basin

Abstract. The Ganges River Basin may have a major pending water crisis. Although the basin has abundant surface water and groundwater resources, the seasonal monsoon causes a mismatch between supply and demand as well as flooding. Water availability and flood potential is high during the 3–4 months of the monsoon season. Yet, the highest demands occur during the 8–9 months of the non-monsoon period. Addressing this mismatch requires substantial additional storage for both flood reduction and improvements in water supply. Due to hydrogeological, environmental, and social constraints, expansion of surface storage in the Ganges River Basin is problematic. A range of interventions that focus more on the use of subsurface storage (SSS), and on the acceleration of surface–subsurface water exchange, have long been known as the "Ganges Water Machine". One approach for providing such SSS is through additional pumping prior to the onset of the monsoon season. An important necessary condition for creating such SSS is the degree of unmet water demand. This paper highlights that an unmet water demand ranging from 59 to 119 Bm3 exists under two different irrigation water use scenarios: (i) to increase Rabi and hot weather season irrigation to the entire irrigable area, and (ii) to provide Rabi and hot weather season irrigation to the entire cropped area. This paper shows that SSS can enhance water supply, and provide benefits for irrigation and other water use sectors. In addition, it can buffer the inherent variability in water supply and mitigate extreme flooding, especially in the downstream parts of the basin. It can also increase river flow during low-flow months via baseflow or enable the re-allocation of irrigation canal water. Importantly, SSS can mitigate the negative effects of both flooding and water scarcity in the same year, which often affects the most vulnerable segments of society – women and children, the poor and other disadvantaged social groups.

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Comparing Groundwater Storage Changes in Two Main Grain Producing Areas in China: Implications for Sustainable Agricultural Water Resources Management

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12132151 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (13) ◽

pp. 2151 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Longqun Zheng ◽

Yun Pan ◽

Huili Gong ◽

Zhiyong Huang ◽

Chong Zhang

Keyword(s):

Food Production ◽

Groundwater Abstraction ◽

Groundwater Storage ◽

The North ◽

Grace Data ◽

Groundwater Supply ◽

Agricultural Water Resources ◽

Gravity Recovery ◽

Sown Area ◽

Additional Area

Balancing groundwater supply and food production is challenging, especially in large regions where there is often insufficient information on the groundwater budget, such as in the North China Plain (NCP) and the Northeast China Plain (NECP), which are major food producing areas in China. This study aimed to understand this process in a simple but efficient way by using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data, and it focused on historical and projected groundwater storage (GWS) changes in response to changes in grain-sown areas. The results showed that during 2003–2016, the GWS was depleted in the NCP at a rate of −17.2 ± 0.8 mm/yr despite a decrease in groundwater abstraction along with an increase in food production and a stable sown area, while in the NECP, the GWS increased by 2.3 ± 0.7 mm/yr and the groundwater abstraction, food production and the sown area also increased. The scenario simulation using GRACE-derived GWS anomalies during 2003–2016 as the baseline showed that the GWS changes in the NCP can be balanced (i.e., no decreasing trend in storage) by reducing the area of winter wheat and maize by 1.31 × 106 ha and 3.21 × 106 ha, respectively, or by reducing both by 0.93 × 106 ha. In the NECP, the groundwater can sustain an additional area of 0.62 × 106 ha of maize without a decrease in storage. The results also revealed that the current groundwater management policies cannot facilitate the recovery of the GWS in the NCP unless the sown ratio of drought-resistance wheat is increased from 90% to 95%. This study highlights the effectiveness of using GRACE to understanding the nexus between groundwater supply and food production at large scales.

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Understanding the effects of climate warming on streamflow and active groundwater storage in an alpine catchment: the upper Lhasa River

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-24-1145-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 1145-1157

Author(s):

Lu Lin ◽

Man Gao ◽

Jintao Liu ◽

Jiarong Wang ◽

Shuhong Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Air Temperature ◽

Climate Warming ◽

Gray Relational Analysis ◽

Permafrost Degradation ◽

Groundwater Storage ◽

Alpine Regions ◽

Grace Data ◽

Lhasa River Basin ◽

Lhasa River

Abstract. Climate warming is changing streamflow regimes and groundwater storage in cold alpine regions. In this study, the Yangbajain headwater catchment in the Lhasa River basin is adopted as the study area to assess streamflow changes and active groundwater storage in response to climate warming. The results show that both annual streamflow and the mean air temperature increase significantly at respective rates of about 12.30 mm per decade and 0.28 ∘C per decade from 1979 to 2013 in the study area. The results of gray relational analysis indicate that the air temperature acts as a primary factor for the increased streamflow. Due to climate warming, the total glacier volume has retreated by over 25 % during the past 50 years, and the areal extent of permafrost has degraded by 15.3 % over the last 20 years. Parallel comparisons with other subbasins in the Lhasa River basin indirectly reveal that the increased streamflow at the Yangbajain Station is mainly fed by the accelerated glacier retreat. Using baseflow recession analysis, we also find that the estimated groundwater storage that is comparable with the GRACE data increases significantly at rates of about 19.32 mm per decade during the abovementioned period. That is to say, as permafrost thaws, more spaces have been made available to accommodate the increasing meltwater. Finally, a large water imbalance (of more than 5.79×107 m3 a−1) between the melt-derived runoff and the actual increase in runoff as well as the groundwater storage is also observed. The results from this study suggest that the impacts of glacial retreat and permafrost degradation show compound behaviors on the storage–discharge mechanism due to climate warming, and that this fundamentally affects the water supply and the mechanisms of streamflow generation and change.

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Retrieval of Turbidity on a Spatio-Temporal Scale Using Landsat 8 SR: A Case Study of the Ramganga River in the Ganges Basin, India

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10113702 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 3702

Author(s):

Mona Allam ◽

Mohd Yawar Ali Khan ◽

Qingyan Meng

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Water Quality Monitoring ◽

The United States ◽

United States Geological Survey ◽

Landsat 8 ◽

River Channels ◽

Ganges River ◽

Promising Tool ◽

Ramganga River ◽

The Ganges

Nowadays, space-borne imaging spectro-radiometers are exploited for many environmental applications, including water quality monitoring. Turbidity is a standout amongst the essential parameters of water quality that affect productivity. The current study aims to utilize Landsat 8 surface reflectance (L8SR) to retrieve turbidity in the Ramganga River, a tributary of the Ganges River. Samples of river water were collected from 16 different locations on 13 March and 27 November 2014. L8SR images from 6 March and 17 November 2014 were downloaded from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website. The algorithm to retrieve turbidity is based on the correlation between L8SR reflectance (single and ratio bands) and insitu data. The b2/b4 and b2/b3 bands ratio are proven to be the best predictors of turbidity, with R2 = 0.560 (p < 0.05) and R2 = 0.726 (p < 0.05) for March and November, respectively. Selected models are validated by comparing the concentrations of predicted and measured turbidity. The results showed that L8SR is a promising tool for monitoring surface water from space, even in relatively narrow river channels, such as the Ramganga River.

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