Groundwater Asia

Mapping Groundwater Resilience to Climate Change and Human Development in Asian Cities
Mapping Groundwater Resilience to Climate Change and Human Development in Asian Cities
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About Project

Groundwater plays an important role in the sustainable development of major cities in Asia. The strategic importance of groundwater for the city’s water supply will probably intensify under climate change and human development (population growth, urbanization) in the future. Therefore, it is imperative to assess the resiliency of groundwater under climate change and human development for strategic planning and management of water resources in urban areas. The outputs of the project will enhance the understanding of the impact of climate change and human development on groundwater system and will help to provide transparency in identifying the vulnerable or sensitive part of the system which will significantly enhance the chances of developing strategies for preparedness, response, and recovery against disruptive events.

Project objectives

The aim of the project is to improve understanding of the impacts of climate change and human development on groundwater resources and local demand. The project will develop policy recommendations for sustainable groundwater development and management that will support adaptation and build resilience. There are four key objectives:

Effects of groundwater recharge on nitrate-nitrogen loadings

The objective of this paper is to identify the source and transport of nitrate in the groundwater aquifers of alluvial fans by stable isotopic techniques. Water samples collected from the precipitation, groundwater, and river water at the western Kofu basin were analyzed for the major cations, anions, and isotopes (δ18O and δ15N). Through the cluster analysis of the cations and anions, two groundwater aquifers formed on the Midai and Kamanashi alluvial fans were identified in the basin. Higher nitrate concentrations were observed in the groundwater aquifers of the Midai alluvial fan, and the values of δ15N suggest that the major sources of nitrate are the inorganic and organic fertilizers applied in the orchards and paddy fields. The values of δ18O show that precipitation and river water are sources of recharge in both the aquifers. A strong positive correlation between the nitrate concentration and the δ18O values of both the groundwater aquifers shows that precipitation water acts as a carrier and river water facilitates dilution in the nitrate loading from terrestrial catchments.

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Climate and land-use change impacts on spatiotemporal variations in groundwater recharge: A case study of the Bangkok Area, Thailand

Groundwater contributes to the socioeconomic development of the Thai capital Bangkok and its vicinity. However, groundwater resources are under immense pressure due to population growth, rapid urbanisation, overexploitation, and climate change. Therefore, evaluating the combined impact of climate change and land-use change on groundwater recharge can be useful for developing sound groundwater management systems. In this research, the future climate is projected using three Regional Climate Models (RCMs), namely ACCESS-CSIRO-CCAM, CNRM-CM5-CSIRO-CCAM, and MPI-ESM-LR-CSIRO-CCAM for three future periods: near future (2010–2039), mid future (2040–2069), and far future (2070–2099) under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios 4.5 and 8.5 as suggested in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. All RCMs project the temperature to rise incessantly, although future precipitation is predicted to fluctuate (increase and decrease) among the various RCMs and RCP scenarios. A Dyna-CLUE model is employed to analyse the future land-use change scenarios (low, medium, and high urbanisation), with the aim of expanding the built-up area and creating land-use maps covering the period to 2099. A hydrological model, WetSpass, is used to estimate groundwater recharge under future climate and land-use change. The findings reveal that groundwater recharge is expected to decrease in high and medium urbanisation areas, ranging from 5.84 to

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Evaluation of the CORDEX regional climate models (RCMs) for simulating climate extremes in the Asian cities

This study evaluates the ability of 21 Regional Climate Models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) in simulating climate extremes in the fast growing Asian cities which are highly vulnerable to climate change. The three Asian cities have two different climate characteristics, namely Bangkok and its vicinity and Ho Chi Minh City in tropical climate region and Kathmandu in sub-tropical and tem-perate climate region. The RCMs were evaluated to simulate the six climate indices; Consecutive Dry Days (CDD), Simple Daily Intensity Index (SDII), Number of extremely heavy precipitation days (R50mm), Maximum 1-day precipitation amount (RX1day), Mean of daily maximum temperature (TX mean) and Mean of daily minimum temperature (TN mean). The performance indicators used were correlation coefficient, normalized root mean square deviation, absolute normalized root mean square deviation and average absolute relative deviation. The Entropy method was endorsed to acquire weights of these four indicators and weightage average techniques were used for ranking of 21 RCMs. The result demonstrated that the best model for one climate index is not the same best model for other climate indices. The 3 RCMs; WAS44_SMHI_RCA4_IPSL_CM5A_MR, WAS44_SMHI_RCA4_MIROC5, and WAS44_IITM_REGCM4-4_CSIRO_MK3-6-0 are the best performing RCMs for simulating future climate extremes in Bangkok and

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