Plastic derived from the petrochemical industry with a high molecular weight constitutes about 9-13% of total solid waste. Since the industrial revolution, the use of plastic has increased manifold without improving its adequate management as a waste. Most of the plastic waste produced in the world is mainly from packaging industry followed by building and construction. Plastic is a non-degradable deadly pollutant to degrade environmental quality and are known to remain in water and soil for years without making any change in their structure. Due to enormous generation, open burning of plastic is also preferred due to the lack of resource in the developing countries thus releasing toxic gases thereby causing air pollution. Plastic disturbs the balance of the environment by acting as physical barrier leading to the drainage of the drains, degrading soil properties, and are often ingested by the organisms ultimately leading to their death. Thus, it becomes more important to manage the plastic pollution keeping in view its detrimental impacts on the environment.
<p>Groundwater is a major source of water supply over most regions, accounting for nearly one-third of all water abstraction globally. However, due to overreliance on this resource, many aquifers around the United States have experienced rapid depletion, while some aquifers have seen increasing water levels due to extensive recharge efforts. It is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the rate at which groundwater storages are changing to assess the potential availability of groundwater in the future. In this work, we estimate groundwater storage changes across more than 1000 watersheds over the US from a proposed algorithm for baseflow extracted using streamflow and precipitation observations. We also study the spatial and temporal variations in the characteristic of baseflow recession. We compare the storage change estimated from baseflows with those obtained from the estimates from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and observations from monitoring wells. The results help in validating the application of the proposed baseflow-based storage estimates in different aquifers and climatic regions. The proposed approach is simple and computationally efficient for estimating baseflows and groundwater storage changes in poorly-gauged watersheds.</p>
<p>In the absence of precipitation or any other artificial input source, base-flow, a component of streamflow, sustains natural surface water bodies like rivers and streams. Therefore understanding, identifying, and extracting baseflow from streamflow measurement is essential for many hydrological studies, e.g., estimating watershed characteristics, long-term groundwater storage trends, flow regulations or water policy, water quantity, quality, supply, habitat and informing management of regional water resources. We aim to understand the morphologic factors that are known to influence groundwater outflow, for example, slope, length of the stream, drainage density, stream order, stream frequency on the baseflow recession characteristic or storage delay constant (K) in the watershed. We study how (K) varies with the choice of different estimation methods like using streamflow recession analysis by Brutsaert, (2008) algorithm, our newly developed algorithm for baseflow analysis, and using one of the solutions of Bossinesq&#8217;s groundwater flow equation. Using the aforementioned three techniques, the influence of significant morphologic characteristics is found for 56 small watersheds within the large watershed of the Rock River basin over the study period of 1990-2021. Using factor analysis we rank morphologic parameters in terms of their relative influence on (K). The findings of our study suggest that the morphologic parameters that influence the storage delay constant are intercorrelated and play a complex role in shaping the (K) values.</p>
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