Predicting land-use change and its impact on the groundwater system of the Kleine Nete catchment, Belgium

Abstract

Abstract. Land-use changes are frequently indicated to be one of the main human-induced factors influencing the groundwater system. For land-use change, groundwater research has mainly focused on the change in water quality thereby neglecting changes in quantity. The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of land-use changes, from 2000 until 2020, on the hydrological balance and in particular on groundwater quantity, as results from a case study in the Kleine Nete basin, Belgium. New is that this study tests a methodology, which couples a land-use change model with a water balance and a steady-state groundwater model. Four future land-use scenarios (A1, A2, B1 and B2) based on the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) are modelled with the CLUE-S model. Water balance components, groundwater level and baseflow are simulated using the WetSpass model in conjunction with a steady-state MODFLOW groundwater flow model. Results show that the average recharge decreases with 2.9, 1.6, 1.8 and 0.8% for scenario A1, A2, B1 and B2, respectively, over the 20 covered years. The predicted reduction in recharge results in a small decrease of the average groundwater level in the basin, ranging from 2.5 cm for scenario A1 to 0.9 cm for scenario B2, and a reduction of the baseflow with maximum 2.3% and minimum 0.7% for scenario A1 and B2, respectively. Although these averages appear to indicate small changes in the groundwater system, spatial analysis shows that much larger changes are located near the major cities in the study area. Hence, spatial planning should take better account of effects of land-use change on the groundwater system and define mitigating actions for reducing the negative impacts of land-use change.

Spatio-temporal impact of climate change on the groundwater system

“…Figure 9 shows that groundwater recharge in urban areas is most vulnerable to climate change. A land-use map of the catchment can be found in Dams et al (2008). The relatively large decrease in groundwater recharge in urban areas is mainly caused by a significantly higher increase in AET simulated by the WetSpa model due to the predicted climate change, in comparison to non urban areas.…”

“…By applying this ensemble of climate change models we obtain uncertainty bounds on the impacts of the climate change on the groundwater system. We limit the study to climate change impacts, disregarding other expected changes such as land-use change (Dams et al, 2008).…”

Analysis of Water Resources in Horqin Sandy Land Using Multisource Data from 2003 to 2010

“…GWS is controlled by both natural processes, such as precipitation and evaporation, and human activities, such as industrial and domestic consumption and agricultural irrigation [67,68]. The effects of these factors on groundwater circulation can either be direct or indirect.…”

Disentangling the Complexity of Groundwater Dependent Social-ecological Systems

“…The increase in impervious surfaces results in: (i) reduced infiltration and recharge; (ii) reduced evapotranspiration; and (iii) possible increases in groundwater abstraction by industrial and commercial activities which do not necessarily require high quality water, and sometimes by households tapping shallow aquifers for irrigation (Rinaudo et al 2015). Urban development policies and planning can influence the degree of impact of these factors, for example, by careful selection of locations for large impervious surfaces (industrial and commercial sites, transportation infrastructure), associated mitigation, and promoting low impact designs (Dams et al 2008;Cho et al 2009). Water sensitive urban design can result in increasing recharge and available groundwater resources, by redirecting runoff from roofs and roads into the soil and thereby the shallow aquifer (Wong 2006;Barron et al 2013;Hussey and Kay 2015).…”