Abstract
A precise, climate-resilient rationing/budgeting of groundwater resources is essential for planning its judicious utilization and development. This study undertakes a pioneering scientific assessment for incorporating the ArcGIS integrated with GEC-2015 guidelines into groundwater budgeting computations for the mining environ. The dynamic groundwater resource has been computed for a 10 km buffer study area of Batura opencast mine, Sohagpur coalfield, India, by applying the modified safe-yield approach cum lumped-parameter water balance method on the inflow and outflow components, to derive the change in storage. The results reveal that: the annual gross groundwater extraction is estimated at 17.41 × 106 m3 while the annual extractable groundwater resource is estimated at 51.82 × 106 m3. The recharge component of nearly twofold the extraction component indicates dominant diffuse (natural) recharge and only a minor need of managed (focussed) recharge measures like an artificial recharge in the study area. This amounts to a 16.87% stage of groundwater extraction value indicating that the study area falls in the safe category. Around 90% of the recharge in the study area is found to be natural replenishment through monsoon rainfall, which, coupled with the occurrence of cyclic fluctuation in the water-level in aquifers, establishes that mining in such areas is a climate-resilient activity vis-a-vis groundwater. Besides, the biological reclamation and afforestation of the mined-out area trigger the reversal of land-use pattern caused by the mining activity, minimizing its disruptive effect on the climate-driven water cycle, while upholding ecologically sustainable industrial development (ESID) principles in the mining areas.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
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Acknowledgements
The authors express sincere thanks to CMPDIL, HQ (Ranchi) for according necessary permission to publish this paper. The authors also express sincere gratitude to the management of SECL, Bilaspur for some of the data support. We would also like to place sincere admiration to the scientists of Rajiv Gandhi National Ground Water Training & Research Institute, CGWB, Raipur, India for their valuable suggestions, especially to Dr. A.V.S.S. Anand (Scientist-D). The views expressed in this paper are of the authors only and not necessarily of the organization to which they belong.
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Singh, R., Narayan, I.D., Doley, T. et al. Climate-resilient groundwater rationing in the mining environment: an operational framework of India. Environ Earth Sci 80, 449 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-09732-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-09732-1