Quantifying Anthropogenic Stress on Groundwater Resources.

ABSTRACT: This study explores a general framework for quantifying anthropogenic influences on groundwater budget based on normalized human outflow (h_out) and inflow (h_in). The framework is useful for sustainability assessment of groundwater systems and allows investigating the effects of different human water abstraction scenarios on the overall aquifer regime (e.g., depleted, natural flow-dominated, and human flow-dominated). We apply this approach to selected regions in the USA, Germany and Iran to evaluate the current aquifer regime. We subsequently present two scenarios of changes in human water withdrawals and return flow to the system (individually and combined). Results show that approximately one-third of the selected aquifers in the USA, and half of the selected aquife

SUBMITTER: Ashraf B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5635107 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature