Impact of human activities on coastal groundwater pollution in the Yang-Dai River plain, northern China
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Impact of human activities on coastal groundwater pollution in the Yang-Dai River plain, northern China Zekang He 1,2 & Dongmei Han 1,2 & Xianfang Song 1,2 & Shengtian Yang 3 Received: 25 March 2020 / Accepted: 15 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Overexploitation of groundwater has resulted in seawater intrusion in many semiarid and arid coastal areas. This study illustrates the origin of groundwater salinity and assesses seawater intrusion/extrusion process in the Yang-Dai River plain aquifer, by analyzing hydrochemical and stable isotopic compositions of surface water, groundwater, geothermal water, and seawater. A cone of depression in groundwater is caused by intensive groundwater pumping formed in the late 1980s in the alluvial Yang-Dai River plain. In the northern part, groundwater exploitation has caused seawater intrusion identified by Ca-Cl type water. However, the widely distributed silty clay prevented the seawater intrusion in the southern part, evidenced by Ca-HCO3 type water with depleted δ2H (−60 to −46‰) and δ18O (−8.9 to −4.7‰). Anthropogenic pollution also plays a significant role in groundwater salinization. The positive correlation between Cl and NO3- for most groundwater and the extremely high nitrate concentrations (up to 652.7 mg/L) indicate that fertilizer from agricultural activities has greatly influenced groundwater quality. Irrigation return flow evaporation during agricultural activities also accounts for groundwater salinity. Besides the intensive fertilizer usage, seawater intrusion and the established anti-tide dams reduced the surface water and groundwater discharge to the sea and then resulted in the extremely high nitrate concentration. This study may improve the understanding of the groundwater salinization processes in a complex coastal aquifer, which is greatly influenced by anthropogenic activities. Keywords Agricultural activities . Coastal aquifer . Freshening process . Groundwater hydrochemistry . Salinization
Introduction This study also highlights the importance of hydrogeology setting for identifying the coastal groundwater evolution (seawater intrusion or freshening) with intensive groundwater exploitation. Responsible editor: Xianliang Yi Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09760-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Dongmei Han [email protected] 1
Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
2
College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3
Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
The coastal area accounts for only 20% of all land area in the world, and yet, it provides housing for 41% of the world population (Martinez et al. 2007). In many coastal regions, groundwater is a significant sour
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