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Volume 36 Issue 5
Oct 2025
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Article Contents
Journal of Earth Science  > 2025  >  36(5): 2296-2307.
Xianghui Cao, Shaokang Yang, Yuejun Zheng, Qiuliang Lei, Jiaojiao Guan, Wenpeng Li, Kifayatullah Khan. Changes in China's Groundwater Storage with Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers. Journal of Earth Science, 2025, 36(5): 2296-2307. doi: 10.1007/s12583-024-0021-4
Citation: Xianghui Cao, Shaokang Yang, Yuejun Zheng, Qiuliang Lei, Jiaojiao Guan, Wenpeng Li, Kifayatullah Khan. Changes in China's Groundwater Storage with Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers. Journal of Earth Science, 2025, 36(5): 2296-2307. doi: 10.1007/s12583-024-0021-4
shu

Changes in China's Groundwater Storage with Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers

doi: 10.1007/s12583-024-0021-4
  • 1.

    China Institute of Geo-Environment Monitoring, Beijing 100081, China

  • 2.

    Bureau of Qinghai Environmental Geological Prospecting, Xining 810001, China

  • 3.

    Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China

  • 4.

    School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China

  • 5.

    Department of Environmental and Conservation Sciences, University of Swat, Swat 19130, Pakistan

More Information
  • Corresponding author: Xianghui Cao, xhcao199054@163.com; Shaokang Yang, qhshjdzkcj@126.com
  • Received Date: 05 Jan 2024
  • Accepted Date: 05 May 2024
    • Available Online: 14 Oct 2025
  • Issue Publish Date: 30 Oct 2025
    Abstract

  • Groundwater is the major source of fresh water, and it performs a crucial role in maintaining ecosystems and adapting humans to climate variation. Due to excessive reliance on groundwater in some regions, the amount of groundwater being consumed is higher than the recharge, which leads to a durative decline of groundwater level. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal variability in groundwater storage (GWS) in China. And the possible drivers of observed GWS changes were also identified. GWS level displayed large regional disparities with higher reserves in the Yangtze River Basin and Songhua River Basin. Temporally, GWS level showed decreasing trends in the North China Plain region, Yellow River Basin, Inner Mongolia Plateau and Junggar Basin. And, GWS showed a significant increase in the Tibetan Plateau and Songhua River Basin. Without considering the impact of human activities, groundwater reserves are also showing a decreasing trend in future climate scenarios in most of the 15 zones. Contribution analysis of driving forces on the basis of the percentages of standardized coefficient (r) suggested that the variations of GWS were largely controlled by anthropogenic activities with the contribution proportions of 35.43%–73.37%. And the contribution proportions of natural drivers accounted for 26.63%–64.62%, with the key factors of precipitation, temperature and vegetation cover. The results would help to formulate sustainable strategies for managing groundwater resource.

     

    • DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
    The groundwater storage (GWS) datasets used in this study can be collected from the GLDAS_CLSM products of NASA Data Information and Services Center (https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search?q=GLDAS&lat=0.0703125&long=0.140625). The observational groundwater-level data are collected from the national groundwater-level Yearbook published by the China Institute of Geo-Environment Monitoring. And the groundwater-level Yearbook can be accessed from the Library and Reference Room of China Geological Environment Monitoring Institute. Monthly ET was simulated by using ETMonitor model with a spatial resolution of 1 km (Zheng et al., 2022). Global land surface evapotranspiration monitoring by ETMonitor model driven by multi-source satellite earth observations. Journal of Hydrology, 613, 128444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.128444]. The historical and future meteorological conditions were obtained from the China Meteorological Administration (http://data.cma.cn/en). The social economic data and NDVI was collected from the Resource and Environment Science and Data Center (https://www.resdc.cn/). These datasets are available in the Supplementary Information.
    Electronic Supplementary Materials: Supplementary materials (Supplementary Information; Figures S1–S3) are available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-024-0021-4.
    Conflict of Interest
    The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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