Alarming groundwater depletion in the Delhi Metropolitan Region: a long-term assessment
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Alarming groundwater depletion in the Delhi Metropolitan Region: a long-term assessment Shouraseni Sen Roy & Atiqur Rahman & Shakeel Ahmed & Shahfahad & Ishita Afreen Ahmad
Received: 5 March 2020 / Accepted: 30 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Groundwater in Delhi Metropolitan Region (DMR) is suffering from multiple catastrophes, viz., asymptotic increases in groundwater withdrawal, reduced recharge due to erratic rainfall, and variable soil type. In this study, we examined long-term trends in groundwater levels across the DMR from 1996 to 2018. Station level data collected by the Central Groundwater Board for 258 stations at the seasonal scale were visualized and interpreted using geospatial analysis. The spatial patterns of the trends in groundwater levels revealed increasing depths of groundwater levels, except the Yamuna River floodplains. The main cause for the decline is related to the rapid growth in population accompanied with high-density impervious urban land uses, leading to lower levels of recharge vs unlimited withdrawal of groundwater for daily needs. In addition, the local geology in the form of clayey soils in northwest DMR also contributed to the lower levels of recharge. The results of the analysis enabled us to establish the trend and delineate the zones of differential recharge. Furthermore, the level of contaminants were analyzed at the district level for fluorides and nitrates. The presence of fluoride contamination was mostly concentrated in the northwestern district, while the nitrate exceedance
S. S. Roy (*) Department of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Rahman : S. Ahmed : Shahfahad : I. A. Ahmad Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
was more widespread. These findings will help in achieving the 6th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of United Nations by 2030 as well as goals identified in Delhi’s master plan of 2041. Keywords Groundwater depletion . Land use land cover change (LULCC) . Delhi Metropolitan Region . Urbanization
Introduction Groundwater is considered as the world’s largest reservoirs of freshwater resources, which is essential for the sustenance of diverse ecosystems, and critical to the food insecurity and water scarcity debate particularly in semi-arid regions. It is a very important renewable source of fresh water, which accounts for one-third of all freshwater withdrawals on the earth surface. The depletion of groundwater is predicted to accelerate in the future due to anthropogenic activities coupled with climate change. Groundwater resources are considered better distributed than surface water because of its ubiquity, and, therefore, account for 90% of the global accessible freshwater (Shiklomanov and Rodda 2003). With increasing population and pressure on land, the rate of groundwater withdrawal is substantially higher than the recharge rate, particularly in the arid and semiarid regions of the world like the Indian s
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