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This document is a comment on a previous article discussing the regulatory design of the Water Sustainability Act (WSA) in British Columbia, Canada. The comment argues that the WSA's regulatory design took a science-forward approach and considered specific regional factors. It addresses criticisms of the WSA and emphasizes the importance of licensing groundwater use for assessing environmental impacts. The WSA allows for nuanced water management through regulation-making authorities, but challenges remain in implementing the regulations, including Indigenous water rights and government resources. Recommendations for improving the WSA's design include defining sustainability goals, regionalizing regulatory action, and long-term planning. Ongoing resourcing and consideration of Indigenous rights are necessary for the effective implementation of the WSA. [Extracted from the article]

This document is a reply to a comment on a previous article about applying a science-forward approach to groundwater regulatory design in British Columbia, Canada. The reply addresses three aspects of the comment: the need for legislation for data collection, the flexibility within the new regulatory regime, and the acknowledgement of Indigenous water rights. The authors of the reply appreciate the insider perspective provided by the comment authors, who were involved in the development of the regulatory regime. The reply also discusses the importance of a science-forward approach to groundwater regulation and the challenges faced in implementing it. It concludes by suggesting ways to course correct and improve the regulatory design in the future. [Extracted from the article]

Accurate and precise values of hydrodynamic parameters are needed for groundwater modeling and management. Pumping test in the aquifer is the standard method to estimate the transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity, and storage coefficient as the key hydrodynamic parameters. Analytical solutions with curve matching and numerical modeling are two methods to estimate these parameters in the aquifer. Graphical analyses are commonly applied to time-drawdown/water table data which are time-consuming and approximate. Graphical type-curve methods as promising tools are used extensively in water resources studies, while applying these methods is still new in pumping test analysis. In the current study, the first effort based on our knowledge, we have reviewed the literature type-curve graphical methods in pumping test analysis. To achieve this goal, we reviewed and compared the journal articles regarding the characteristics and capabilities of the modeling process from 2000 to 2022. We have clustered the reviewed papers into graphical, modeling, and hybrid categories. Then, a comprehensive review of the selected papers was presented to delineate the highlight of every paper. This review could guide researchers in pumping test analysis. Also, we have presented various recommendations for future research to improve the quality of hydrodynamic parameter estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change in groundwater dynamics (in terms of changes in depth to watertable and its salinity) is a key environmental concern for agricultural production using pulp and paper mill effluent for irrigation purposes. At the study site, the treated effluent is delivered from the mill into a winter storage dam. This storage dam is also meant to provide an opportunity for runoff collection and recycling for irrigated areas. A natural creek also exists along the farm boundary. This paper presents, using field observation data and computer simulation results, the impact of using treated effluent from the pulp and paper mill on groundwater dynamics at the farm (covering areas both under and outside the effluent irrigation paddocks); and on the flows in the adjacent creek. The modeling results show that after 5 years of operations, the change in aquifer storage is more under average climatic conditions (−23.5 mm/year) as compared to −7.1 and −9.0 mm/year under dry and wet climatic conditions, .respectively. Under average climatic conditions, the combined effect of irrigation and rainfall creates more hydraulic gradient towards the creek thereby depleting the aquifer storage more as compared to wet and dry climatic conditions. Resultantly, the subsurface groundwater flows towards the creek becomes around 57.9 mm/year under average scenario as compared to 55.0 and 36.7 mm/year under wet and dry climatic conditions, respectively. During the average climatic condition, 456.6 mm evaporation from shallow groundwater was estimated under the current management practices; which was reduced to 399.1 mm under the best management practices due to better use of all sources of water and capillary upflow from shallow groundwater. Thus, with the adoption of best management practices, there would be less risk of salinisation due to evaporation from shallow groundwater tables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jakarta is the center of Indonesia's economy and development. However, the city of Jakarta suffers from many problems related to groundwater, and good groundwater governance is needed to realize groundwater sustainability. Groundwater management can be initiated by undertaking conceptual and numerical groundwater modeling. This paper reviews several previous studies related to groundwater modeling of the Jakarta groundwater basin that have provided information about the groundwater system and groundwater quantity. However, improvements are required for any further studies. The critical challenges to providing a complete picture of the groundwater conditions in the Jakarta groundwater basin are the availability of reliable data and improved groundwater flow models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive intake of iodine will do harm to human health. In recent years, high iodine groundwater has become a global concern after high arsenic and high fluorine groundwater. A deep understanding of the environmental factors affecting iodine accumulation in groundwater and the mechanism of migration and transformation is the scientific prerequisite for effective prevention and control of iodine pollution in groundwater. The paper comprehensively investigated the relevant literature on iodine pollution of groundwater and summarized the present spatial distribution and hydrochemical characteristics of iodine-enriched groundwater. Environmental factors and hydrogeological conditions affecting iodine enrichment in aquifers are systematically summarized. An in-depth analysis of the hydrologic geochemistry, physical chemistry, biogeochemistry and human impacts of iodine transport and transformation in the surface environment was conducted, the results and conclusions in the field of high iodine groundwater research are summarized comprehensively and systematically. Stable isotope can be used as a powerful tool to track the sources of hydrochemical components, biogeochemistry processes, recharge sources and flow paths of groundwater in hydrogeological systems, to provide effective research methods and means for the study of high iodine groundwater system, and deepen the understanding of the formation mechanism of high iodine groundwater, the application of isotopic technique in high iodine groundwater is also systematically summarized, which enriches the method and theory of high iodine groundwater research. This paper provides more scientific basis for the prevention and control of groundwater iodine pollution and the management of groundwater resources in water-scarce areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1800s, a water conflict occurred in a community named the Fukuzuka Ring Levee on the Noubi Plain, Japan. Upper villages required artesian wells for irrigation and domestic uses, but lower villages did not welcome them because drainage from the wells caused impoundment damage to their paddy fields. The Kabu-ido system was a set of rules, including regulation of the number of wells per village, introduced to de-escalate the conflict. Under the system, groundwater uses were controlled not by external authority, but by the community residents themselves. This paper has two purposes. First, it reconstructs the daily operations of the Kabu-ido system, principally by referring to surviving local diaries, to describe hitherto unknown details regarding the management of groundwater by local people 200 years ago. The diaries show that well managers, selected from residents, regulated the use of wells using various tools, including permission and surprise inspection. Second, this paper evaluates to what extent self-imposed numerical regulation was successful by checking the number of wells listed in village expenditure notes. The documents indicate that regulation did not always work. The factors underlying this are considered using the analytical framework from the commons studies. Analysis shows that, while institutional arrangements of the Kabu-ido system, such as well management with keys, rules of joint responsibility, and the prohibition of indoor wells, work positively in enforcing numerical regulation by lowering the costs of monitoring for unauthorized wells, the natural characteristics of groundwater and climate conditions such as sudden drought work negatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In arid and semi-arid countries worldwide, conflicts between human development activities and conservation of groundwater resources are widespread and attract many public debates. This research aims to propose groundwater management alternatives for a coastal aquifer by studying its vulnerability and in particularly the risk of seawater intrusion. An additional objective is to propose some agricultural policies aimed to conserve groundwater resources in Mahdia and Ksour Essaf. Intensive groundwater mining, for irrigation and for water drinking, has caused an overexploitation of the water resources. In addition, the degradation of water quality, caused by septic tanks and intensive agricultural activities, has given rise to notable crucial state of the groundwater resources. With the aim of tackling the groundwater degradation problem, integration into a common platform of vulnerability assessment, seawater intrusion modelling and hydrochemical analysis is proposed. This platform can considerably reflect the water resources state in order to propose some solutions reducing the contamination of the Mahdia-Ksour Essaf aquifer. The groundwater management alternatives, proposed in this study, were prepared within a geographical information system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land subsidence is a global geo-hazard caused by various natural and human factors, and it directly threatens the safety of the environment and infrastructures. Investigating the mechanism of land subsidence is becoming more and more important. In this paper, we use the persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) technique combining the distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) technique to detect the spatial–temporal distributions of land subsidence and investigate the stratum deformation characteristics in Shengze, Suzhou. By analyzing Sentinel-1A date between 2017 and 2019 with the PSI technique and the deformation date derived by the DFOS technique, we conclude that the land surface deformations are mostly affected by the transitional exploitation of groundwater. The average line-of-sight (LOS) deformation rate is mostly concentrated in − 3 to 2.2 mm/yr, and a maximum subsidence rate of up to − 16.9 mm/yr is observed in four industrial areas. Meanwhile, the DFOS-derived results reveal that the compression strata are mostly concentrated in 41.2–137.9 m depth, which is closely associated with the pore water pressure in the second confined aquifer. And it also reveals that the groundwater over-exploitation may be the significant triggering factor of the subsidence in the study area. The InSAR-derived results are also evaluated by the deformation time series obtained by the DFOS technique. The combination of those two new sensing and monitoring technologies enables us to highlight the large deformation area and reveal the mechanism of its subsidence, which is conducive to urban development, disaster risk management, and rational exploitation and management of groundwater in Suzhou, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, North Africa has witnessed significant population growth, particularly those bordering the Mediterranean Sea. This led to increased demand for groundwater, which is an essential source for various water uses such as drinking water supplies and irrigation. Generally, human activities play a crucial role in the different quantitative and qualitative changes in groundwater. Now, climate changes such as a decrease in precipitation have also led to a shortage of water resources and a decline in the groundwater table. This paper presents the impact of climate changes on groundwater resources in the Ain Azel region, Setif, northeastern Algeria. The analysis of long-term spatiotemporal variability in rainfall over 63 years (1958–2021) revealed a significant decline in groundwater recharge, especially after 2013. In contrast, the Pettitt and Mann–Kendall tests show increased temperatures with breaks between 1984 and 1986. A piezometric analysis of the alluvial aquifer demonstrated a significant decline in groundwater levels in the last 20 years. Hydrochemical analysis showed that groundwater in the region is dominated by Ca–Mg–Cl water type, which indicates the presence of water salinity phenomenon. Water Quality Index (WQI) analysis showed the deterioration of groundwater in the area, which may be caused by several factors: brine intrusion from the Salt Lake (Sebkha) in the north; the dissolution of evaporites (Triassic) and/or anthropogenic sources of agricultural and industrial origin. Our findings provide an overview summarizing the state of groundwater, which will help improve groundwater resource management in the region in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection of subsurface hydrodynamic anomalies plays a significant role in groundwater resource management and environmental monitoring. In this paper, based on data from the groundwater level, atmospheric pressure, and precipitation in the Chengdu area of China, a method for detecting outliers considering the factors affecting groundwater levels is proposed. By analyzing the factors affecting groundwater levels in the monitoring site and eliminating them, simplified groundwater data is obtained. Applying sl-Pauta (self-learning-based Pauta), iForest (Isolated Forest), OCSVM (One-Class SVM), and KNN to synthetic data with known outliers, testing and evaluating the effectiveness of 4 technologies. Finally, the four methods are applied to the detection of outliers in simplified groundwater levels. The results show that in the detection of outliers in synthesized data, the OCSVM method has the best detection performance, with a precision rate of 88.89%, a recall rate of 91.43%, an F1 score of 90.14%, and an AUC value of 95.66%. In the detection of outliers in simplified groundwater levels, a qualitative analysis of the displacement data within the field of view indicates that the outlier detection performance of iForest and OCSVM is better than that of KNN. The proposed method for considering the factors affecting groundwater levels can improve the efficiency and accuracy of detecting outliers in groundwater level data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Groundwater resource management is crucial for promoting sustainable development in areas with surface water scarcity, such as Hua County in China. This paper aims to estimate groundwater recharge and evaporation during the pre- and post-rainy seasons in Hua County. The non-equilibrium evaporation model was established to quantify the degree of evaporation. Ternary end-member mixing analysis (EMMA) was used to evaluate the contributions of recharge sources to groundwater recharge. The concentrations of major ions in surface water and groundwater showed some differences, which may be due to differences in their lithological classes and hydrogeochemical evolution. The ion concentrations of both surface water and groundwater were observed to be lower in the post-rainy season, because rainfall infiltration during the rainy season diluted ion concentrations. The Gibbs diagram, end-member diagram, and δ2H versus δ18O diagram all revealed that groundwater was affected by evaporation to some extent, especially in the pre-rainy season. The non-equilibrium evaporation model showed that the remaining proportions of evaporation calculated using 18O and 2H were 0.96 and 0.94%, respectively, during the pre-rainy season and 0.97% and 0.96%, respectively, during the post-rainy season. According to EMMA, the mean contributions of subsurface lateral flow, precipitation infiltration, and river percolation to groundwater were 47%, 28%, and 25%, respectively, during the pre-rainy season and 57%, 30%, and 13%, respectively, in the post-rainy season. The findings of the present study demonstrated that integration of hydrochemistry and isotopic signatures supports better understanding of groundwater recharge and evaporation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is challenging to interpret hydrogeochemical datasets with complex natural and anthropogenic genesis in intensive industrial areas. This paper elucidates the hydrogeochemical characteristics and pollution sources of groundwater in an industrial park, East China, combining the self-organizing map (SOM), hydrochemical graphs, and correlation analysis. The results show that the total dissolved solids of groundwater range from 73.45 to 997.92 mg/L and can be regarded as freshwater. The pH varies greatly from 6.44 to 9.90, most of samples belonging to weakly acidic-weakly alkaline. The groundwater can be classified into five clusters by SOM, representing the non- or least-polluted groundwater (cluster D), high salt groundwater (cluster A), high NH4+-N and HCO3− groundwater (cluster B), high Fe and Mn groundwater (cluster C), and high pH groundwater (cluster E), which were contaminated by industrial salts, historical agriculture activity, industrial reducing substances, and industrial alkali, respectively. The natural evolution of groundwater (cluster D) in the study area is mainly controlled by mineral weathering/dissolution. The contributions of calcite, dolomite, gypsum, halite, and silicate mineral to groundwater solute are 55.8–66.3%, 15.1–18.0%, 9.0–10.7%, 2.5–10.1%, and 2.3–9.4%, respectively, based on the mass conservation. The contaminated groundwaters (all other clusters except for cluster D) have different hydrochemical characteristics associated with the pollution sources. In addition, the relatively reductive environment in quaternary flu-lacustrine sediments favored the formation of high level of Fe, Mn, and NH4+-N in groundwater. This study provides a new insight into the characteristic contaminants and their distributions in groundwater and the associated pollution sources based on the large datasets in an intensive industrial area. The data evaluation methods and results of this study could be useful to the groundwater usage management and pollution control in this area and other industrial areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correct management of groundwater depends on information regarding the evolutionary processes of groundwater and the characterization of spatial variability of recharge mechanisms. GIS-based index models have become a reliable alternative for mapping and interpreting recharge models due to their adaptability and reliability in estimating recharge. Furthermore, stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in water (δ2H and δ18O) help determine the origin and monitoring of water in the hydrological cycle. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge of groundwater recharge by developing a conceptual recharge model using stable isotopes and estimating the recharge amount using a spatially distributed water balance model based on GIS for the Zamora River Basin (ZRB) in Ecuadorian Amazon. Due to the basin's size and geography, it was necessary to divide it into six precipitation blocks. The high precipitation rates resulted in high (18.22%) and moderate (30.93%) recharge zones across the basin. The analysis of stable isotopes in water indicates that precipitation water comes from the east, from the Amazon plain. In the valleys, precipitation enriched in δ18O suggests that it has undergone a recycling process in the basin; groundwater recharge comes from these precipitations. This analysis provides a simplified representation of reality that can assist in predicting the impacts of human activities on the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the only source of water in the Algerian Sahara is groundwater. This source, unique and fossil, knows overexploitation and anarchic management of the wells carried out in these aquifers for needs like drinking water, irrigation, and industrial. Therefore, its management in Algeria represents a crucial problem because of its impact on the environment and human life. This paper presents an extensible, scalable, agile, and incremental decision support system allowing the management of this groundwater in Algeria based on data lake, a new concept of big data. The developed system comprises three parts: data collection, data processing, and storage in the data lake and restitution of this data in a dashboard and mapping. To conclude, this system can help to provide better visibility to Algerian decision-makers allowing optimal management of this vital source with the ultimate goal of improving the life of Algerian citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater level prediction is important for effective water management. Accurately predicting groundwater levels allows decision-makers to make informed decisions about water allocation, groundwater abstraction rates, and groundwater recharge strategies. This study presents a novel model, the self-attention (SA) temporal convolutional network (SATCN)-long short-term memory neural network (SATCN-LSTM), for groundwater level prediction. The SATCN-LSTM model combines the advantages of the SATCN and LSTM models to overcome the limitations of the LSTM model. By utilizing skip connections and self-attention mechanisms, the SATCN model addresses the vanishing gradient problem, identifies relevant data, and captures both short- and long-term dependencies in time series data. By demonstrating the improved performance of the SATCN-LSTM model in terms of mean absolute error and root mean square error (RMSE), and by comparing these results with those reported in previous papers, we have highlighted the advancements and contributions of the proposed model. By improving prediction accuracy, the SATCN-LSTM model enables decision-makers to make informed choices regarding water allocation, groundwater abstraction rates, and drought preparedness. The SATCN-LSTM model contributes to the sustainable and efficient use of groundwater resources by providing reliable information for decision-making processes. The SATCN-LSTM model combines the temporal convolutional network (TCN) architecture with LSTM. TCN is known for its ability to capture short-term dependencies in time series data, while LSTM is effective at capturing long-term dependencies. By integrating both architectures, the SATCN-LSTM model can capture the complex temporal relationships at different scales, leading to improved prediction accuracy. Meteorological data were used to predict GWL. The SATCN-LSTM model outperformed the other models. The SATCN-LSTM model had the lowest mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.09, followed by the self-attention (SA) temporal convolutional network (SATCN) model with an MAE of 0.12. The SALSTM model had an MAE of 0.16, while the TCN-LSTM, temporal convolutional network (TCN), and LSTM models had MAEs of 0.17, 0.22, and 0.23, respectively. The SATCN-LSTM model had the lowest root mean square error of 0.14, followed by SATCN with an RMSE of 0.15. The study results indicated that the SATCN-LSTM model was a robust tool for predicting groundwater level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the potential groundwater assessment and sustainable management in the selected study area. It is the most preferred water source in all climatic zones for its convenient availability, drought dependability, excellent quality, and low development cost. The rural areas, which account for more than 85% of the country's population, encountered a shortage of potable water supply which can be solved by proper groundwater utilization. For the present study area, the groundwater potential is assessed and analysed. Thus, the study area falls into four potential groundwater zones ranging from poor to high. However, the current groundwater management practices in the study area are poor. Despite the pervasive and devastating challenges, immediate and proper responses have not yet been given to the problem. Thus, such frustrating threats and challenges have initiated the researcher to work in the project area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water markets are considered an effective groundwater management instrument. However, the emergence of market power during their operation, i.e., price manipulation, cannot be excluded. In this paper, a simple water market between two groups of farmers is modeled and an attempt is made firstly to quantify the loss of aggregate total benefits during a given planning period from the occurrence of market power in this market using a "structural model" to describe the market conditions and solving an optimal control problem and secondly to determine the initial allocation of water rights that limits the loss of benefits due to market power. The results of simulations based on hydro-economic data of a region in Northern Greece lead to two conclusions. The first conclusion is that the loss of aggregate total benefit is likely to reach even 10 % compared to perfect competition when there is a full monopoly or monopsony in the water market. The second conclusion is that an initial allocation close to the quantities consumed by each group under perfect competition leads to a limitation of the impact of market power on the aggregate total benefit gained by the two groups of farmers during the planning period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of the influence of human activities and climate change on groundwater is an important basis for formulating groundwater management policies. However, the relationship between climate change, human activities and groundwater system is complex, and the research on the response of groundwater to changing environment is in the initial stage. In this paper, the interactions between groundwater water cycle and climate change and human activities are analyzed, based on climate change data and hydrogeological information from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The MODFLOW model was used to develop a numerical model of shallow groundwater movement in Zhongmu County, Henan province, and to predict the response of groundwater levels to climate change and human activities in three cases from 2016 to 2050. The results show that under the current scenario, the groundwater level will decrease at an average annual rate of 4.24 cm/A from 2016 to 2050. Under the climate change scenario, the precipitation increased by an average of 5.01%, the annual evaporation increased by an average of 17.84% and the annual temperature increased by an average of 1.29 °C from 2016 to 2050 under the three emission cases of RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, under the climate change–autonomous human activities scenario, when water conservation and South–North Water Transfer Project water supply are implemented simultaneously, the water table will decrease by an average of 5.58 CMA per year under the direct impact scenario and by an average of 4.44 CMA per year under the indirect impact scenario, the water table dropped by 3.21 cm/A. The changing environment will have an important effect on groundwater circulation, and appropriate measures must be taken to deal with the continuous decline of groundwater level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping vulnerability to Saltwater Intrusion (SWI) in coastal aquifers is studied in this paper using the GALDIT framework but with a novelty of transforming the concept of vulnerability indexing to risk indexing. GALDIT is the acronym of 6 data layers, which are put consensually together to invoke a sense of vulnerability to the intrusion of saltwater against aquifers with freshwater. It is a scoring system of prescribed rates to account for local variations; and prescribed weights to account for relative importance of each data layer but these suffer from subjectivity. Another novelty of the paper is to use fuzzy logic to learn rate values and catastrophe theory to learn weight values and these together are implemented as a scheme and hence Fuzzy-Catastrophe Scheme (FCS). The GALDIT data layers are divided into two groups of Passive Vulnerability Indices (PVI) and Active Vulnerability Indices (AVI), where their sum is Total Vulnerability Index (TVI) and equivalent to GALDIT. Two additional data layers (Pumping and Water table decline) are also introduced to serve as Risk Actuation Index (RAI). The product of TVI and RAI yields Risk Indices. The paper applies these new concepts to a study area, subject to groundwater decline and a possible saltwater intrusion problem. The results provide a proof-of-concept for PVI, AVI, RAI and RI by studying their correlation with groundwater quality samples using the fraction of saltwater (fsea), Groundwater Quality Indices (GQI) and Piper diagram. Significant correlations between the appropriate values are found and these provide a new insight for the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stochastic methods are widely used for the identification of contaminant source information. However, these methods suffer from low computational efficiency. To address this issue, surrogate models can be effectively utilized. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian framework with arbitrary polynomial chaos expansion (BaPC) to simultaneously identify the contaminant source information including contaminant location and release mass-loading rate. We test the applicability of the BaPC for simultaneous identification in a synthetic confined aquifer by the concentration observations from all-time steps multiple times. Our results demonstrate that this approach can efficiently and accurately identify the source information of the contaminant. In addition, the evolution of the contaminant plume can be successfully predicted by employing the estimated contaminant information. It is of crucial importance for the environmental protection and management of groundwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal groundwater management is a necessary condition for achieving the objective of sustainable development, which is directly linked to issues of intergenerational equity. Thus, groundwater management policy shaping has to consider such issues, in particular through the implementation of appropriate discounting methods. The existing literature in the field of groundwater management focuses on a single discount function (DF), the exponential one, without considering the impact of different DFs on the results obtained. At the same time, tradable water rights (TWR) systems have been suggested as policy instruments for more efficient and sustainable water use. This paper focuses on the impact that different DFs have on the formulation of groundwater management policies based on TWR. To this end, a dynamic model is formulated, which concerns groundwater pumping from an aquifer by two groups of users participating in a TWR system and four different DFs are considered to calculate the present value of social welfare: no discounting, exponential, hyperbolic and Gamma discounting. The results of simulations based on data for an aquifer in Northern Greece show that there is a high sensitivity of the results to the DF, which has a direct effect on social welfare from groundwater consumption, aquifer's hydrological behavior and TWR system intertemporal economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fresh surface water is increasingly becoming scarcer worldwide, leading to significant groundwater over-extraction. However, groundwater over-extraction could result in many environmental externalities including various land subsidence (LS) effects. LS causes the gradual reduction of the voids and the subsequent ground surface sinking. The loss of aquifer system storage capacity, owing to LS, is one such negative externality that is seldom discussed in the economic literature. In this paper, we investigate the indirect loss of the aquifer system storage capacity due to LS along with other direct LS negative externalities. We develop a dynamic economic optimization model for groundwater utilization and evaluate various policy instruments (quota systems, taxes on land sinking and aquifer storage loss, and packaging and sequencing of taxes and quotas) to prevent overexploitation externalities. The model is calibrated to South African data. We found that taxes on land sinking and aquifer system storage capacity reduction have a significant effect on withdrawals and water table levels. Taxes provide larger social welfare. In addition, under certain circumstances, quotas are preferable when it comes to supporting groundwater conservation practices. Packaging and sequencing provide the second largest social benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Natural resources policies that promote sustainable management are critical for protecting diverse stakeholders against depletion. Although integrating diverse stakeholders into these policies has been theorized to improve protection, empirical evidence is lacking. Here, we evaluate 108 Sustainability Plans under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to quantify how well stakeholders are integrated into plans and protected from groundwater depletion. We find that the majority of Sustainability Plans do not integrate or protect the majority of their stakeholders. Nevertheless, our results show that when stakeholders are more integrated into a Sustainability Plan, they are more likely to be protected, particularly for those that lack formal access to decision-making processes. Our findings provide strong empirical evidence that integrating diverse stakeholders into sustainability planning is beneficial for stakeholders who are vulnerable to the impacts of natural resource depletion. This paper shows that integrating diverse stakeholders into management plans results in better protection, especially for those most vulnerable to the impacts of natural resource depletion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of climate change on water resources management and groundwater quantity and quality in the coastal agricultural Almyros Basin, in Greece. Intensive groundwater abstractions for irrigation and nitrogen fertilization for crop production maximization, have caused a large water deficit, nitrate pollution, as well as seawater intrusion in the Almyros aquifer system. Multi-model climate projections for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) from the Med-CORDEX database for precipitation and temperature have been used to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the study area. The multi-model climate projections have been bias-corrected with Delta, Delta change of Mean and Variance, Quantile Delta Change, Quantile Empirical Mapping, and Quantile Gamma Mapping methods, and statistically tested to find the best GCM/RCM multi-model ensemble. Simulation of coastal water resources has been performed using an Integrated Modelling System (IMS) that contains connected models of surface hydrology (UTHBAL), groundwater hydrology (MODFLOW), nitrate leaching/crop growth (REPIC), nitrate pollution (MT3DMS), and seawater intrusion (SEAWAT). The results indicate that the best climate multi-model ensemble consists of three (3) climate models for both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 using the Quantile Empirical Mapping bias-correction method. The IMS was applied for historical and future periods with observed and simulated meteorological inputs (e.g. precipitation and temperature) and various irrigation and agronomic scenarios and water storage works development (i.e. reservoirs). The results indicate that at least deficit irrigation and deficit irrigation along with rain-fed cultivation schemes, combined with or without the development and operation of reservoirs, should be applied to overcome the degradation of groundwater quality and quantity in the study basin. Based on the findings of this work, the water resources management should be adaptive to tackle the water resources problems of the Almyros Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qanat system, as a great human heritage, contributes to the sustainable management of groundwater in the arid and semiarid regions of the world. The main aim of this paper was to efficiency assessment of the environmental variables in the construction of the Qanat system in Iran. Using the geographical information system (GIS) and statistical method of receiver operation characteristic (ROC), the efficiency of 20 environmental variables was assessed based on divisions of 30 major hydrological basins. Results revealed that most physical parameters and anthropogenic characteristics have significant effects on the construction of Qanat water lines with an AUC index > 0.6. The Pearson correlation test also confirmed the positive and significant relationships between the Qanat system and mentioned environmental parameters. From a geological viewpoint, the results highlighted the effective role of Quaternary aged alluvial sediments with very high permeability and low density of crust rocks in arid soils of arid and semiarid regions, such as playa fields in NamakTehran, Kavir, Lut, and Siahkuh basins. Regarding the spatial expansion of the Qanat system in Iran, the higher effects of some test variables, such as the climatic element of temperature, fault density, and drainage density, were rejected due to poor discrimination values of the AUC index < 0.6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Groundwater serves as a primary water source for various purposes. Therefore, aquifer pollution poses a critical threat to human health and the environment. Identifying the aquifer's highly vulnerable areas to pollution is necessary to implement appropriate remedial measures, thus ensuring groundwater sustainability. This paper aims to enhance groundwater vulnerability assessment (GWVA) to manage aquifer quality effectively. The study focuses on the El Orjane Aquifer in the Moulouya basin, Morocco, which is facing significant degradation due to olive mill wastewater. Groundwater vulnerability maps (GVMs) were generated using the DRASTIC, Pesticide DRASTIC, SINTACS, and SI methods. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed improvements, 24 piezometers were installed to measure nitrate concentrations, a common indicator of groundwater contamination. This study aimed to enhance GWVA by incorporating new layers, such as land use, and adjusting parameter rates based on a comprehensive sensitivity analysis. The results demonstrate a significant increase in Pearson correlation values (PCV) between the produced GVMs and measured nitrate concentrations. For instance, the PCV for the DRASTIC method improved from 0.42 to 0.75 after adding the land use layer and adjusting parameter rates using the Wilcoxon method. These findings offer valuable insights for accurately assessing groundwater vulnerability in areas with similar hazards and hydrological conditions, particularly in semi-arid and arid regions. They contribute to improving groundwater and environmental management practices, ensuring the long-term sustainability of aquifers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing impacts on coupled food-water systems that may emerge from water policies, changes in economic drivers and crop productivity requires an understanding of dominant uncertainties. This paper assesses how a candidate groundwater pumping restriction and crop prices, crop yields, surface water price, electricity price, and parametric uncertainties shape economic and groundwater performance metrics from a coupled hydro-economic model (HEM) through a diagnostic global sensitivity analysis (GSA). The HEM used in this study integrates a groundwater depth response, modeled by an Artificial Neural Network (ANN), into a calibrated Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) agricultural production model. Results show that in addition to a groundwater pumping restriction, performance metrics are highly sensitive to prices and yields of perennial tree crops. These sensitivities become salient during dry years when there is a higher reliance on groundwater. Furthermore, results indicate that performing a GSA for two different water baseline conditions used to calibrate the production model, dry and wet, result in different sensitivity indices magnitudes and factor prioritization. Diagnostic GSA results are used to understand key factors that affect the performance of a groundwater pumping restriction policy. This research is applied to the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District located in Kern County, California, region reliant on groundwater and vulnerable to surface water shortages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a global concern, the issue of groundwater salinization refers to the phenomenon of an increase in the overall chemical content over background levels in the groundwater. It involves a long-term process that could degrade groundwater quality and restrict its availability for drinking, irrigation and industry. For the effective protection and further research of groundwater resources, policy strongly depends on understanding the development, hotspots and trend directions of groundwater salinization research, which involves the degree, sources and processes of global groundwater salinization. However, such a comprehensive and systematic analysis has not been performed, and it is difficult to have a deeper understanding of groundwater salinization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the knowledge structure, hot topics and trends in the field of groundwater salinization based on 6651 Web of Science (WoS) publications combined with CiteSpace for in-depth bibliometric and visual analysis. The results showed that 292 institutions in 125 countries have published articles in this field from 1970 to 2021. The USA was one of the most prolific contributors, with the largest number of publications and active institutions. Cooperation among authors has become frequent in recent years, and they tend to cooperate in groups. According to the analysis of co-occurrence keywords and co-cited articles, "water resources", "sea level rise" and "variable density flow" were identified as three hot topics. A keyword burst analysis revealed the emerging trends of concerns about global climate change and the sustainable utilization of water resources. In addition, the possible opportunities and challenges were explored that may be faced in groundwater salinization research. The outcomes of this study are significant for future research on groundwater management and pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies groundwater management through a leader–follower differential game between a water agency and farmers. The access to the common pool is not free and farmers have to pay a water tax to withdraw. To save this cost, we assume that farmers may not declare all the water pumped and face the risk of being sanctioned. The water agency, on the other hand, knows that unauthorized water extraction may occur and chooses the water tax that maximizes only the legal social welfare. The value of the farmers' evasion share is unknown ex-ante by the water agency. The game is solved using feedback Nash solution. To understand how the water agency may counter illegal behaviors, we perform numerical simulations based on the Western La Mancha (Spain) aquifer data. It emerges that the optimal path of the water table is always above the minimum level, although it is sensitive to the level of the ecosystem costs. Moreover, increasing the administrative sanction reduces the unauthorized water extraction and raises the social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The increasing need of sustainable technologies to produce domestic water in metropoles of developing countries faces socioenvironmental problems such as contamination, distribution network failures and water depletions due to overexploitation and climate changes. In this paper, a long-term (9 years) multiparameter evaluation of river bank filtration (RBF) was carried out in an urban and tropical environment in NE Brazil. RBF constitutes a promising way to mitigate adverse effects of unsustainable resource management, as it is adaptable to local needs and may limit non-renewable resource uses. Interannual monitoring of stream water and pumped groundwater allowed deciphering an efficient bacteriological (total disappearance of total and thermotolerant coliforms), physicochemical (general increase of COD/BOD ratio from 5 to 8 reaching 10 to more than 30, lowering of turbidity from 10–300 to 0 NTU) and drug attenuation (from 22 to 193 µg L−1 to 9 µg L−1 in the pumped groundwater for diclofenac and total disappearance of paracetamol most of the time). This suggests that RBF is relevant for local water supply: While socioenvironmental context implies great pressures over the resource, hydrological and hydrogeological conditions favor biodegradation performance, promoted by high temperatures (near 25 °C), and natural self-regulation. However, from a chemical point of view, low turbidity was associated with nitrate increase (reaching temporarily more than 40 mg L−1) in the RBF well. This indicates that the great physicochemical/biochemical filtration potential may in turn favor a great biogeochemical reactivity involving redox processes of concern for domestic purposes in urban and tropical context and that adapted pumping schedule is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Decision-makers require correct and adequate information on groundwater flow systems in a basin in order to formulate sustainable water resources development strategies. However, the practicality and realism of groundwater flow system models depend on the validity, reliability and availability of quality data and information, and how they are used in model development and calibration. This goes hand in hand with how the underlying theories, tenets and assumptions are understood, interpreted and applied. The more uncertain and contentious the information is, the wider are the knowledge and theoretical gaps, and thus the less useful the model results are for decision-making. The understanding of water table types in groundwater basins has become one of the additional factors for an in-depth understanding and modeling of nested groundwater flow systems. The classification of water table types using a water table ratio provides that if the ratio is more than 1, this depicts a topography-controlled area and a ratio of less than 1 depicts a recharge-controlled terrain. Log transformation of the water table ratio proved the same interpretation. This paper therefore reviews the evolution of groundwater flow systems theory, the prevailing knowledge and theoretical gaps by specifically pinpointing the theoretical and conceptual contentions and additional factors which can possibly limit the application of groundwater flow theories in regional groundwater modeling studies. The implications of how the conceptual and theoretical contentions affect groundwater modeling for decision-making in groundwater development and management are also pinpointed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kumamoto area includes 11 municipalities and a population of about one million. The area represents the largest total use of groundwater in Japan. The main recharging area for this groundwater used to be paddy fields for rice production located along the mid-stream section of the Shirakawa River. In the past few decades, the area of paddy fields has rapidly decreased due to the Japanese government's rice production adjustment policy and urbanization. In consequence, the groundwater recharge decreased from 656.2 million m3 in 1992 to 606.9 million m3 in 2006. Thus, groundwater recharge from paddy fields only might not be sufficient for groundwater demand in the future. For this reason, an artificial recharge system was established to increase groundwater recharge. In this study, we review the history of groundwater management and results of 14 years' operation of a large-scale artificial groundwater recharge project in the Kumamoto area. We visualize the resilience of the groundwater management and recharge project by influence of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. It is shown that through an integrated approach of all societal groundwater stakeholders, a sustainable groundwater management can be achieved. The hydrological methods in this integrated approach quantify recharging groundwater volumes for different types of recharge fields by use of 170 local experimental observations. Results and experiences outlined in this paper can be used by planners and managers of dwindling groundwater resources to build resilient systems for groundwater recharge by involving all societal stakeholders through an integrated approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we examine the implications of groundwater sustainability policies on agricultural land retirement and how retired land can be repurposed to minimize social, economic, and environmental harms, while maximizing potential benefits. Globally, as water resources are strained by increasing agricultural demand and biophysical factors, policies are enacted to restrict groundwater pumping for irrigated agriculture in order to stem social, economic, and environmental harm. However, little is known about the implications of land retirement on ecosystems and people, and how this land can be best repurposed. Using Kern County, CA, as a case study, we draw from 23 qualitative interviews with stakeholders in the agricultural, water, and conservation sectors to understand the impacts of sustainable groundwater management policy and options for land repurposing. Stakeholders in our study outlined both positive and negative impacts of such policies across the region, including increased financial costs of agricultural production, crop type switches to perennial crops such as trees and vines, and improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders. Stakeholders discussed options for land repurposing to maximize ecological, social, and economic benefits, including habitat restoration, installation of solar farms, grazing, groundwater recharge, temporary fallowing, and recreation and parks. Finally, we propose recommendations to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms from the retirement and repurposing of agricultural land: (1) increasing regional planning and cross-stakeholder communication for strategic land repurposing, (2) minimizing the burden of policies that may restrict land repurposing options, and (3) ensuring financial incentives exist for landowners to repurpose their land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater NO3 contamination (GNC) threatens the drinkability of water in many countries worldwide. It could cause serious health problems and sometimes lead to death. This paper aims to introduce a comprehensive approach that combines GIS, statistics and Machine Learning (ML) for the groundwater quality management including both water quality assessment and prediction. The performances of this approach are discussed through its application on assessing and predicting nitrate (NO3) concentrations in the Eocene Aquifer, Palestine. Spatiotemporal records of NO3 over the period 1982–2019 are integrated in a database and used in this research. The database includes the following factors: well depth, well use, anthropogenic on-ground activities, watersheds, soil type and land use. Geo-statistical assessment using GIS and statistical boxplots is employed to assess the variability of NO3 concentrations and how they are affected by the independent indicators. Assessment outcomes (NO3 distribution and the influencing factors) were used to build the Random Forest (RF) prediction model. Such model is used to predict GNC level in groundwater based on multi-influencing factors. Assessment results indicate increasing and decreasing trends of GNC in the southern and middle parts of the study area, respectively. It also provides the RF model by the main influencing factors affecting GNC in the study area which are: well depth, well use, anthropogenic on-ground activities, watersheds and land use. Results indicate that RF has an average and maximum prediction accuracy of 88.5 and 91.7%, respectively. The well depth has the highest influence on GNC. This research could support water authority decision-makers toward the adoption of sustainable groundwater protection plans in Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]