Groundwater in Arid Regions of China

Abstract

Groundwater is an immensely important and dependable source of water in arid regions including both urban and rural areas of developed and developing countries. The ecological environment in arid regions is extremely fragile and excessive development of groundwater resources may cause lots of ecological problems, and even ecological crisis in some areas. Maintaining sustainable development of socio-economy under the conditions of protecting and rehabilitating the ecological environment pose a great challenge for groundwater research in the arid regions. The paper summarizes key points mostly studied by international researchers, then gives a brief introduction to groundwater researches in arid regions of northwestern China, and introduced several key research aspects with emphasis on conjunctive surface water-groundwater use and management, social ecology and groundwater, groundwater salinity, variability of aquifer parameters, groundwater management, monitoring techniques, groundwater system under the impact of climate change. Key issues are put forward to improve the eco-environmental problems in arid regions of China including the relationship between groundwater and groundwater dependent ecosystems, developing the integrated Oasis-hydrosphere-economy models, strengthening the National Groundwater Monitoring Network, using the new techniques such as environmental isotope, remote sensing and groundwater geophysics. The final solutions of water-related problems in northwestern China will be from many engineering and non-engineering projects, such as shifting steadfastly the inappropriate pattern of economic growth, carrying out energetically restructuring of industry ingand building high-efficiency, water-conservation and pollution-control economy and society .. Key words: Arid regions, ecological rehabilitation, surface water-groundwater interaction and water cycle, groundwater monitoring and management, oasis-hydrosphere-economymodels.