In many places around the globe, groundwater has been threatened by various pressures, which calls for better management strategies for groundwater sustainability. In this study, we suggest a novel framework for identifying factors critical to coastal groundwater based on results from City Blueprint (CB) assessments. By compiling the 5856 indicator results of the City Blueprint Approach (CBA) from 122 cities and analyzing the correlation between thes indicators, we constructed City Blueprint networks (CBN) by using a complex network modeling approach for three groups of cities: all 122 cities, 40 coastal, and 82 non-coastal cities. These networks were then analyzed for their node centralities to identify major factors that influence coastal groundwater management. Interestingly, our analysis revealed that groundwater has various indirect but important links with the factors that are typically unexplored in the literature. We also assessed the CB of the two largest coastal cities in South Korea. By combining the results of network analysis and CB assessment of the two cities, we could identify the indicators that are potentially at risk regarding coastal groundwater. We propose the CBN as a novel approach to unveil underestimated or hidden factors related to the target system (e.g., groundwater), which allows extensive options for sustainable groundwater management.
<p>Wetlands, which exist in both natural and man-made landscapes, play a critical role in providing various ecosystem services for both ecology and human-being. These services are affected not only by regional hydro-climatic and geologic conditions but also by human activities. On a landscape scale, wetlands form a complex spatial structure by their spatial distribution in a specific geological setting. Consequently, dispersal of inhabiting species between spatially distributed wetlands organizes ecological networks that are consisted of nodes (wetlands) and links (pathways of movement). In this study, we generated and analyzed the ecological networks by introducing deterministic (e.g., threshold distance) or stochastic (e.g., exponential kernel and heavy-tailed model) dispersal models. From these networks, we evaluated structural or functional characteristics including degree, efficiency, and clustering coefficient, all of which are affected by disturbances such as seasonal hydro-climatic conditions that change wetland surface area, and shocks that may remove nodes from the network (e.g., human activities for land development). Specifically, by using the characteristics of the corresponding ecological networks, we analyzed (1) their network robustness by simulating the removal of nodes selected by their degree or area; and (2) the change of variance as the early-warning signal to predict where critical point may occur in global network characteristics affected by disturbances. The results showed that there was not a clear relationship between network robustness and wetland size for node removal. However, when nodes were removed in the order of degree, the network fragmented rapidly. Also, we observed that the variance of network characteristics in the time-series increased in drier hydro-climatic conditions for all the three network models we tested. This result indicates a possibility of using increasing variance as the early-warning signal for detecting a critical transition in network characteristics as the hydro-climatic condition becomes dry. In sum, the observed characteristics of ecological networks are vulnerable to target attack on hubs (structurally important nodes) or drought. Also, the resilience of a wetlandscape can be low after hubs were destroyed or in a dry season causing the fragmentation of habitats. Implications of these results for modeling ecological networks depending on hydrologic systems and influenced by human activities will provide a new decision-making process, especially for restoring and conservation purposes.</p>
<p>&#160; &#160; Groundwater is the largest freshwater resource available on Earth, and many coastal regions are depending on groundwater as a primary freshwater source. For example, in Busan and Incheon, two of the largest coastal cities in South Korea, 5.7% and 7.0% of freshwater uses are from groundwater while only 1.8% is from groundwater in Seoul, the capital of the country. Globally, groundwater availability is diminishing primarily by population increase, and especially in coastal regions, this problem is exacerbated by overexploitation and seawater intrusion, which causes groundwater contamination and further reduces its availability. Here, we view the groundwater system and its management for sustainability as a complex problem that is associated with various social, economic, and environmental factors. By adopting the City Blueprint Approach (CBA), which has been used extensively for assessing the sustainability of integrated water management of numerous cities on the globe, we identify water management factors that potentially have direct and indirect links and feedbacks with groundwater variables. We selected Busan and Incheon as case studies for coastal cities that are facing the risk of groundwater salinization by seawater intrusion. This study aims to 1) assess City Blueprint (CB) of selected coastal cities, 2) identify major factors for coastal groundwater management through correlation analysis, and 3) suggest management options regarding identified factors for sustainable groundwater management of the study areas. Our results on CB indicate that the groundwater quality and quantity of the selected cities are currently in &#8216;good&#8217; status. Also, from the correlation analysis, we identified heat risk and freshwater scarcity as the major factors that potentially can affect groundwater quantity. For groundwater quality, the factors of voice and accountability, regulatory quality, and rule of law and control of corruption, most of which had not been explicitly considered for groundwater management, were identified as the major factors. Some of these factors were assessed from &#8216;little concern&#8217; to &#8216;very concern&#8217; for both cities. These results indicate that, regarding the linkages between groundwater variables and other factors in concern, more actions beyond environmental factors should be taken for sustainable groundwater management. This study helps to understand how non-conventional factors could contribute to coastal groundwater, and can provide extensive options for sustainable groundwater management.</p><p>&#160;</p><p><strong>Acknowledgement</strong>: This research was supported by the Development program of Minimizing of Climate Change Impact Technology through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Science and ICT) (NRF-2020M3H5A1080775).</p>
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