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Arid Land Geography ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (9): 1496-1507.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.618

• Climatology and Hydrology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatiotemporal change of groundwater drought in the plain area of Xinjiang based on GRACE and its response to meteorological drought

GONG Dongdong1,2(), GAO Fan1,2(), WU Bin1,2, LIU Kun1,2   

  1. 1. School of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, Xinjiang, China
    2. Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Water Conservancy Engineering Safety and Water Disaster Prevention and Control, Urumqi 830052, Xinjiang, China
  • Received:2023-11-01 Revised:2024-02-05 Online:2024-09-25 Published:2024-09-24
  • Contact: GAO Fan E-mail:15871656502@163.com;gutongfan0202@163.com

Abstract:

Groundwater resources had an important function of safeguarding resources and maintained ecological security. As global warming and the intensity of human activities increased, the amount of groundwater resources in the plain area of Xinjiang was on a decreasing trend, further aggravaed the risk of groundwater drought. Revealing the spatiotemporal variation’s characteristics of groundwater drought in the plain area of Xinjiang and its responsed to meteorological drought was great of significance for regional economic sustainable development and ecosystem security. This article estimated the changes in groundwater storage in the plain area of Xinjiang from 2003 to 2022 based on GRACE and GLDAS data; On this basis, standardized the changes in groundwater storage and constructed a groundwater drought index; analyzed the spatiotemporal variation’s characteristics of groundwater drought in the plain area of Xinjiang. Finally, used the maximum correlation method to analyze the responsive relationship between groundwater drought and meteorological drought. (1) The change of groundwater storage in the plain area of Xinjiang showed a decreasing trend, with a decreasing rate of 0.60 cm·a-1, and the areas with more obvious decreases were mainly concentrated in the pre-mountain plain of the Tianshan Mountains region, while the rising areas were mainly concentrated in the pre-mountain plain of the northern foothills of the Kunlun Mountains and the pre-mountain plain of the southern foothills of the Altay Mountains. (2) Groundwater drought index monitored that there were 13 and 8 months of groundwater drought events in the plain area of Xinjiang from April 2014 to April 2015, and from May 2022 to December 2022, respectively. Overall, the frequency of groundwater drought in the plain area of Xinjiang was 0.21, the average intensity of groundwater drought was 1.0-2.0, and the average duration of groundwater drought was 4-28 months; Among them, the areas with an average drought duration of 4-10 months, 11-16 months, 17-22 months, and 23-28 months was 80.68%, 9.54%, 4.15%, and 5.63%, respectively. (3) The average responsive time of groundwater drought to meteorological drought in the plain area of Xinjiang was 18 months; the proportion of the area with responsive time of 1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, 10-12 months, and 13-24 months was 11.00%, 2.13%, 2.75%, 2.00%, and 82.12%, respectively. Among them, the responsive time in the pre-mountain plain of the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains showed an increasing trend in the last 20 years, with the responsive time increasing from 1-3 months to 18-24 months, while the responsive time in some areas of the pre-mountain plain of the northern foothills of the Kunlun Mountains slowed down from 9-12 months to 1-3 months first, and then prolonged to 12-24 months.

Key words: GRACE, changes in groundwater storage, groundwater drought, meteorological drought, responsive relationship