Impact Assessment of Urban Built-up Area on Groundwater Level of District Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the impact of built-up areas on groundwater levels in district Faisalabad. To understand the rate of built-up area expansion and changes in the level of groundwater in the study area, groundwater data has been acquired from the Land Reclamation Department for all tehsils in district Faisalabad. This study was conducted to assess spatial and temporal variation of groundwater level because of the built-up area change. Descriptive statistics (Scatter Plot correlation technique) have been applied to figure out changes in groundwater levels. Furthermore, some built-up area extraction methods have been incorporated that are always found to be effective tools for the assessment of built-up area change. The spatial analysis tool Spline has applied to 79 bore points in all tehsils of district Faisalabad. Results clearly show that a built-up increase of 41 km2 in Faisalabad city is causing 1-foot depletion in groundwater as compared to other tehsils, where a built-up increase is negligible. Such research studies of groundwater changes would assist the planners to adopt effective sustainable measures.