Elsevier

Engineering Geology

Volume 276, October 2020, 105763
Engineering Geology

Effects of Water Diversion Project on groundwater system and land subsidence in Beijing, China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2020.105763Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Effects of SNWDP operation on groundwater level (GL) and land subsidence (LS) in Beijing

  • An integrated application of InSAR, GIS and statistics to spatiotemporal datasets

  • GL was spatially variable, with a significant recovery around an artificial recharge site

  • LS mitigation was detected in a large area southwest of the artificial recharge zone

  • Delayed compaction of fine sediments was likely responsible for the ongoing LS

Abstract

South-to-North Water Diversion Project Central Route (SNWDP-CR) is one of the largest human engineering projects aimed at redistributing water resources, receiving a worldwide attention. It conveys water from southern China to the Beijing Plain northward through a 1300-km long canal system and operated since December 2014. Before this date, water supply to Beijing was mainly provided by means of aquifer over-exploitation, causing a significant lowering of the piezometric levels and a huge land subsidence. After 3 years of SNWDP-CR activity, it results of general interest to investigate if the implemented managed aquifer recharge and the supposedly reduced aquifer exploitation have been already accompanied by a piezometric recovery and a decrease of the subsidence rates. This is evaluated for the first time in this contribution, by integrating and statistically analyzing a large dataset consisting of hydrogeologic information, piezometric records, and land subsidence measurements carried out by Persistent Scatterer Interferometry and levelling. The results show that a small (~3 m) to large (~10 m) raise of the piezometric levels has been recorded in the central portion of the north Beijing plain with a certain decrease (up to 10 mm/yr) of the subsidence rates. Conversely, piezometric drawdown and land subsidence has continued to increase in the remaining parts of the study area. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) carried out through infiltration ponds has produced a positive feedback, but at a local scale only. Therefore, it will be necessary to wait a longer period to assess whether the SNWDP-CR will be able to mitigate the hydrogeological hazards connected to groundwater overuse or only to counterbalance in part the growing water demand of the Chinese capital.

Introduction

Land subsidence due to the over-exploitation of groundwater resources, and the related processes of ground ruptures and collapse, are major geo-hazards affecting several countries around the World, including Mexico, Italy, Iran, Vietnam, and China (Galloway and Burbey, 2011; Gambolati and Teatini, 2015; Thoang and Giao, 2015; Mahmoudpour et al., 2016; Simeoni et al., 2017; Figueroa-Miranda et al., 2018; Gu et al., 2018). With the aim of promoting a more sustainable development of aquifers, several studies were conducted over the last decades to characterize the hydro-geomechanical properties of aquifer systems, monitoring and modelling land subsidence, and evaluating the risks associated with the lowering of land elevation (Ferretti et al., 2000; Strozzi et al., 2001; Burbey et al., 2006; Teatini et al., 2007; Tosi et al., 2009; Ferronato et al., 2013; Miller and Shirzaei, 2015; Pacheco-Martinez et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2018; Rezaei and Mousavi, 2019; Mohammady et al., 2019). Land subsidence is a major geological and engineering hazard also in Beijing, threatening buildings, underground constructions, and infrastructures (e.g., Ge et al., 2016).

Beijing metropolis had a resident population of more than 21.7 million in 2017 (Beijing Statistical Yearbook, 2019). Two thirds of water demand were supplied through groundwater wells, with an annual groundwater withdrawal of 2.28 × 109 m3 from 2004 to 2013 (Zhao et al., 2017). Long-term aquifer over-exploitation caused a dramatic decline of groundwater levels and formed a huge regional depression cone. The average lowering of the piezometric level in Beijing Plain amounted to 12.8 m from 1998 to 2014 (Beijing Committee on SNWDP, May, 2018) and caused serious land subsidence. The maximum annual subsidence rate (η) peaked to about 150 mm/yr in the eastern part of Beijing Plain from 2010 to 2015 (Zhang et al., 2016). The area affected by a cumulative subsidence larger than 110 cm was more than 100 km2 between 1955 and 2003 (Fig. 1), seriously threatening the safety of the infrastructure operation.

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) was developed to cope with this water scarcity. The SNWDP is the largest water control project undertaken in human history with the aim of optimizing re-allocation of water resources from southern to northern China. The SNWDP Central Route (SNWDP-CR) diverts water from the Danjiangkou reservoir (32° 43′ North, 111° 34′ East) on the Han River via artificial canals that cross Henan and Hebei Provinces to Beijing (39° 55′ North, 116° 24′ East). The total length is about 1300 km (Fig. 1). The construction began in 2003 and the system has operated since December 2014. The SNWDP-CR is supposed to relieve at least in part the pressure of water demand in Beijing Plain. The cumulative water volume released to Beijing amounted to 5 × 109 m3 in May 2018.

The supply of water to semiarid regions through diversion of surficial waters and long artificial canals is the main engineering solution adopted in different countries. Apart from SNWDP-CR, two other major projects are worth to be highlighted because of their huge dimensions: the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana (IGNP) irrigation system in India and the California State Water Project (SWP), USA. The IGNP system conveys the Satluj and Beas Rivers water southward along a 650 km channel to the irrigation facilities in the Thar Desert (Sharma, 2001). The SWP collects water from rivers in northern California and redistributes it to farmlands in Central Valley and the water-scarce but populous cities in southern California, totaling about 1100 km length (Roose and Starks, 2006).

Many studies have been carried out to anticipate the possible effects of the SNWDP-CR implementation. Numerical models were used to detect the energy saving-effects due to the reduction of pump use for groundwater exploitation (Zhao et al., 2017), the water environment and ecosystem response (Xu et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2016), and the groundwater level change after the project operation (Zhang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2016; Ye et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2012). Satellite radar interferometry technology was also recently applied to investigate changes of land subsidence rates in Beijing as a result of SNWDP-CR operation (Zhou et al., 2019, Lv et al., 2019). However, an integrated analysis on the effect of artificial recharge and decrease of groundwater withdrawal on the groundwater system and land subsidence after a few years of SNWDP-CR operation still lacks. This is surely a critical issue for decision-makers in the Chinese capital and an interesting topic for worldwide hydrogeologists working on water resource management.

SWP in California has been fundamental to keep land subsidence under control. Prior to the construction of the aqueduct in the mid-1960s, portions of land in the Central Valley near the aqueduct dropped between 5 and 10 m (Sneed and Brandt, 2015; Sneed et al., 2018). The rates of subsidence stabilized for a few decades after the SWP construction. Here, we investigate for the first time the possible mid-term hydrogeological effects of SNWDP-CR in term of mitigating water scarcity and reducing land subsidence in the Beijing plain. The investigated period spans from 2010 to 2017, i.e. a few years before and after the SNWDP-CR operations. Two scales of analysis are implemented. First a regional scale, where the average spatio-temporal changes of groundwater piezometry and land displacement provided by Persistent Scatterer Interferometric (PSI) are investigated through GIS-based spatial analyses. Successively, time-series analyses are developed at the local scale to quantify in more detail the evolution of the groundwater levels and the land movements in the surroundings of the main managed aquifer recharge (MAR) plant established north of Beijing and supplied by the SNWDP-CR water.

The outcome of the study will provide a scientific support for strategic decisions to control land subsidence, and specifically for the safety of the huge urban underground space (UUS) in Beijing, which peaks to ~19 m3/person (Bobylev, 2016).

Section snippets

Description of study area

The study area covers the upper and middle part of the Chaobai River alluvial fan (Fig. 1) in the northern part of Beijing Plain, where the recharge area of the aquifer system is located. The zone is divided between the Shunyi, Huairou and Miyun districts, with a total area of 1350 km2 (Fig. 1). Here, the heterogeneous distribution of alluvial deposits makes the geological setting highly complex. The sedimentary system is composed of deposits from coarse to fine, with an undifferentiated

Data set

To quantify the possible beneficial effect of the water resource supplied by SNWDP-CR on the Beijing groundwater system remotely-sensed measurements, levelling and extensometer data, piezometric and precipitation records were gathered and integrated with thematic morpho-geological information including effective infiltration coefficient, managed aquifer recharge and lithological profiles. The dataset is revised in the following paragraphs.

Regional scale analyses

The relationships between groundwater level changes, precipitation infiltration, and geology with the observed land subsidence were analyzed from 2010 to 2017.

Conclusion

This study investigates the possible effects of the first 3 years of SNWDP-CR operation on the evolution of the piezometric levels and land subsidence in the Beijing Plain. The analyses, which are carried out by integrating PSI with statistical and GIS operations, spanned the interval between 2010 and 2017, with the aquifer recharge carried out from August 2015 to December 2017. The study is a first analysis of the expected environmental advantages related to one of the largest engineering

Novelty and international appeal statement

This paper focused on the effects of South-to-North Water Diversion Project Central Route (SNWDP-CR) on groundwater level and land subsidence. SNWDP-CR is one of the largest human engineering projects aimed at redistributing water resources, receiving a worldwide attention. This project is compared with others developed in other countries. The manuscript focused on the integrated analysis on the effect of artificial recharge and decrease of groundwater withdrawal on the groundwater system and

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science (No. 41930109), Beijing Natural Science (No. 8202008), Capacity Building for Sci-Tech Innovation-Fundamental Scientific Research Funds (No. 025195305000/191).

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