Limits to Global Groundwater Consumption

Abstract:

In regions with frequent water stress and large aquifer systems, groundwater is often used as an additional fresh water source. For many regions of the world groundwater abstraction exceeds groundwater recharge and persistent groundwater depletion occurs. The most direct effect of groundwater depletion is declining of water tables, leading to reduced groundwater discharge needed to sustain base-flow to e.g. rivers. Next to that, pumping costs increase, wells dry up and land subsidence occurs. These problems are expected to increase in the near future due to growing population and climate changes. This poses the urgent question of what the limits are of groundwater consumption worldwide.  

We simulate global water availability (5 arc-minute resolution, for 1960-2050) using the hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB (van Beek et al. 2011), coupled to a groundwater model based on MODFLOW (de Graaf et al. 2015), allowing for groundwater – surface water interactions. The groundwater model includes a parameterization of world’s confined and unconfined aquifer systems needed for a realistic simulation of groundwater head dynamics. Water demands are included (from Wada et al. 2014). We study the limits to water consumption, focusing on locally attainable groundwater and groundwater levels critical to rivers to sustain low flows.  

We show an increasing trend (1960-2050) in groundwater head declines, due to increase in groundwater demand. Also, stream flow will decrease and low flow conditions will occur more frequent and will be longer in duration in the near future, especially for irrigated areas. Next to that, we provide a global overview of the years it takes until groundwater gets unattainable for e.g. a local farmer (100 m below land-surface used as a proxy), and estimate the increase in pumping cost for the near future. The results show where and when limits of groundwater consumption are reached globally.