Abstract
A large-scale full-3D water circulation model, which covered with the whole Yellow River Basin (YRB) from source to mouth, was developed to predict the available groundwater resource next 20 years. Reproducibility of YRB model had been verifi ed by using the measured groundwater levels or the existing literature information. Future prediction was carried out based on the scenarios required from 2010's and 2020's water demand and supply data provided by China Geological Survey (CGS).
As a result, it was found that ground settlement caused by groundwater pumping during next 20 years reaches up to 4.0m in Hebei. When we consider recovering groundwater levels to state of 1980's, it is clear that we need to depend on alternative water resources instead of groundwater resources. Even if we have restricted groundwater pumping immediately, amount of such alternatively required water resources will be 10.5 billion tons per year. Furthermore, if we didn't employ any restriction for it during next 20 years, more than 21.4 billion tons per year of water resources will be required as an alternative. These are corresponding to 6.4% and 9.8% of water demand in annually, respectively.
