Abstract
The Minqin Basin is at the lower reach of the Shiyang River of Gansu province in northwest China. Dramatic decline in groundwater level has resulted from over-abstraction of groundwater since the late 1950s to satisfy increasing irrigation and other demands. Severe water shortage led to environmental degradation. To better understand the spatial–temporal variation of groundwater levels and to evaluate the groundwater resources in the region, a three-dimensional regional groundwater flow model was built and calibrated under transient condition. The MODFLOW program was used and the research area was discretized as a square network with cell size of 400 × 400 m. The model showed that the aquifer was under destructive stress, with a groundwater resource deficit of 260 million cubic meters per year (Mm3/year) on average. Since the inflow of surface water from the upstream basin has declined to about 100–150 Mm3/year in recent decades, the irrigation return flow had become the main recharge and accounted for 60.6% of total recharge; meanwhile, abstraction by pumping wells took 99.2% from the total groundwater discharge.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the national basic research program of China (973 Program) (Grant number: 2009CB421305), the CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) Action Plan for West Development Project “Watershed Airborne Telemetry Experimental Research (WATER)” (Grant number: KZCX2-XB2-09) and “Quantitative Remote Sensing of Key Land Surface Parameters and Data Assimilation” project (Grant number: KZCX2-YW-Q10-2).
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Zhang, Y., Ma, J., Chang, X. et al. Water resources assessment in the Minqin Basin: an arid inland river basin under intensive irrigation in northwest China. Environ Earth Sci 65, 1831–1839 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1165-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1165-y