Jing Jihong¹,  Jing Lei², Sun Jichao¹, Wang Shan¹

1.Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology, CAGS, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050061,China

2.Owens Corning(Tianjin)Building Materials Co.,Ltd.Beijing Branch, Beijing, 101407, China

Abstract: The groundwater resources distribution and its exploitation & utilization in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain were described in the article. Each district’s exploitation and utilization degree on groundwater resources were presented, and over- exploitation or exploitable potential in different districts also was explained. It provided some scientific basis for reasonable developing and using groundwater. Last, some trouble in the course of exploitation was showed up and some advice for sustainable development was given.

Key words: Distribution Feature, Groundwater Resources, Nature Recharge Resources, Exploitable Resources

Huang-Huai-Hai Plain is located in the east of China, 113º—121º30´ E，32º—41º N, on the west of Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, east of Taihang Mountain, Funiu Mountain, and Dongbai Mountain, south of Yanshan Mountain, north of Dabie Mountain, Huaihe River and Subei Irrigation Channel, about 300,000km². The plain belong to low plain which attitude is lower than 100m, most is lower than 50m, is sedimentation area, and the dividing line between plain and mountain is very clear. Gradient is within the range of 1/500-1/10000, in the front of mountain, gradient is 1/500-1/1000, but in the east of the plain, gradient only 1/5000-1/10000. In the north of Yellow River, hypsography incline to Bohai Sea from directions of north, west, and south; in the south of Yellow River, the incline from west and northwest to southeast.

Huang-Huai-Hai Plain is deposited by Yellow River, Haihe River and Huaihe River, namely the plain is composed by Yellow River Plain, Haihe River Plain, and Huaihe River Plain. Besides Yellow River water system,Huaihe River water system, and Haihe River water system, there are some small water systems flow into sea, such as Tuhai River water system, Majia River water system, etc. the Yellow River lies in the middle of the plain, traverse the plain from west to east. Yellow River is the watershed between two water systems. On the north of Yellow River is Haihe River - Luanhe River water system, on the south of Yellow River is HuaiheRiver – Yishu River water system.

1 General Situation of Water Resources in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

Climate of the plain is semi-warm, semi-humid & semiarid, annual average rainfall amount about 500-800mm and annual evaporation amount is about 800-1000mm. Drought index is about 0.8-2.0, especially in Hebei Plain, the index is about 1.5-2.0.

Nature recharge resources for groundwater is 54,600,000,000m3/a. About 70% is precipitation, and exploitable resources is 417×108m3/a. For the reason of climate change and influence of water engineering, quantity of groundwater resources has decreased 27% than 1984, one side is precipitation down, for example, annual precipitation amount is 543mm in Hebei province, but the annual precipitation amount was only487.9mm in 1990s, thus infiltration capacity decreased, on the other side, most rivers dried up in the plain due to the reason of water engineering, which made the supply from river decrease obviously.

Groundwater is the most important water supply resources, exploitation amount is 33,400,000,000 m³/a, total exploitation level is 80.23%, severally over exploitation level is 106% and 158.7% in Beijing and Hebei province. Exploitation amount is increasing year after year, for example, it increased from 25.62×108 m3/a 1970s to 27.15×108 m3/a 1999 in Beijing; it increased from 114.03×108 m3/a to 149.46×108 m3/a in Hebei province; it increased from 90.14×108 m3/a to 122.99×108 m3/a in Shandong province; and increased from 77.3×108 m3/a to 129.72×108 m3/a in Henan province, therefore, this shows that groundwater plays an important role to the development of society, economy, and environment.

2 Distribution Feature of Groundwater Resources in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

Groundwater distribution presents well-regular on horizontal plane. From the plain nearby mountain to middle plain to coastal plain; the aquifer components from coarse particle diluvium to coarse-middle-fine particle diluvium to fine-coarse diluvium; groundwater flows from powerful flow to weak flow to stagnation; water-yield of aquifers from rich to secondary to weak; types of water chemistry from hydrocarbonate water to sulfate water to chloride water; and mineralization degree from small to big, namely from fresh water to brackish saline water to saline water.

From aspect of nature recharge resources modulus to analyze, groundwater yield has regional difference obviously (Figure 1). From high to low in turn, the modulus is: Beijing 381,100 m3/km2•a, Shandong219,400 m3/km2•a, Jiangsu 200,600 m3/km2•a, Anhui 163,000 m3/km2•a, Tianjin 161,800 m3/km2•a, Hebei 144,400 m3/km2•a, and Henan 120,500 m3/km2•a. From aspect of nature recharge resources modulus to analyze, groundwater yield has regional difference obviously (Figure 1)

Fig.1 Nature recharge resources modulus of groundwater in each district

Nature recharge resources of fresh groundwater is 342.73×108 m3/a, about 70.5% within total groundwater resources, brackish saline water is 109.07×108 m3/a, about 22.4%, and middle saline water is 34.22×108 m3/a, about 7.1%. Huang-Huai-Hai Plain is the highest plain region in China on content of brackish saline water and middle saline water.

Nature recharge resources of different mineralization degree types within each district are showed in Figure2. Content of brackish saline water and middle saline water within groundwater resources  

Fig.2 Nature recharge resources of groundwater in each district

is the highest in Shandong province and Tianjin, it is 71.8% and 71.6% respectively, secondarily is Hebei province and Jiangsu province, which content is 39.5% and 34.5% singly.

3 Current Status of Groundwater Resources Exploitation and Utilization in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

3.1 Exploitable groundwater resources amount

Assessment area on exploitable fresh groundwater is 202,200km2, total exploitable fresh groundwater resources amount is 305.72×108 m3/a, which is 19.6% than exploitable resources in china’s plain.

From Figure3, Henan province is the richest district on exploitable groundwater resources, which amount is 111.62×108 m3/a. Resources amount is 63.75×108 m3/a in Hebei province, and 57.88×108 m3/a in Anhui province. The distribution ratios of exploitable groundwater in Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing, and Tianjin is 36.51%, 20.85%, 18.93%, 8.33%, 8.03%, 6.99%, and 0.35% respectively.

Fig. 3 Exploitable fresh groundwater resources amount in each district

Huang-Huai-Hai Plain is the highest plain region in China on content of brackish saline water and middle saline water. According to calculate, the brackish saline water valuable to be exploited is 86.43×108 m3/a, and middle saline water is 22.42×108 m3/a. The exploitable brackish saline water and middle saline water resources amount within each district are listed in Table1

3.2 Exploitation degree of ground-water resources

According to the statistic data from the city and county within the plain, exploitation degree of groundwater resources could be classed as 7 levels, namely >120%, 100—120%, 80—100%, 60—80%, 40—60%, 20—40%, and <20%. Exploitation degree of the cities and its distribution are listed in Table-2 and Figure-4. From the table and figure, exploitation degrees in different districts are various obviously. Over exploit seriously in Hebei province, Beijing, and Tianjin, Henan province’s status is better than 3 districts forenamed, and exploitation is reasonable in Jiangsu and Anhui province.

3.3 The proportion of groundwater resources within water supply

The proportions of groundwater within water supply in each district are showed in Table3. Hebei’s proportion is 74.3%, which is the largest. From high to low of proportions in turn, there are Hebei province,Beijing, Henan province, Shandong province, Tianjin, Anhui province, and Jiangsu province. In the north of the plain, groundwater is main source of water supply, and surface water is main source of water supply in the south. In general, groundwater is the most important source of water supply in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain.

The cities’ quantities are listed in Table4 by proportion of groundwater within water supply amount and the purpose of groundwater.

Table1 exploitable brackish saline water and middle saline water resources amount within each district Unit：10⁹ m³/a

      Table2 the city quantities’ distribution by exploitation degrees of groundwater resources in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

Table 3 Water supply amount in each district within Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, 1999

Note: the data of surface water supply amount from Ministry of Water Resources

      Table 4 the city quantities’ distribution by proportion of groundwater within water supply amount on industry, agriculture, and living

Fig. 4 Current status of exploitation and utilization ofgroundwater resources in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

4 Analysis on Exploitable Potential of Groundwater in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

Exploitable potential not only is residual of exploitation which can be got, but also include new finding resources by work hard. Therefore, to comprehend exploitable potential of groundwater should be analyzed with developmental point of view.

4.1 Current annual residual amount of groundwater exploitation

It is only an average outcome to analyze exploitation potential in provincial district, which stay on the surface, and can not reflect the fact of potential. Groundwater is a kind of regional resources, over exploitation and remains coexist within a region frequently, thus province’s average outcome maybe cover up regional over exploitation or exploitation remains. Therefore, the analysis of groundwater potential should be carried out within small hydrologic regionalization or small district. From Table-5, Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei province, all are over exploitation, have been without exploitation potential, Shandong’s exploitation potential is very small also. The districts with high exploitation potential are on the south of the plain. But from Table-2, which statistics according to cities or counties, there are lots of counties with exploitation potential within each province.

      Table 5 Residual amount of fresh groundwater exploitation in the provinces or municipalities within Huang-Huai-Hai Plain

Note: Tianjin’s exploitation amount and resources amount include brackish saline water

4.2 Annual increasable exploitation amount by strengthening management and mending technical

Brackish saline water and middle saline water can be utilized in irrigation and partial industry, and there are lots of successful examples, which partial solved local absence of fresh water resources. According to primary estimate, 86.43×108 m3/a brackish saline water resources and 22.42×108 m3/a middle saline water resources is valuable to be exploited.

4.3 Annual increasable exploitation amount by investigating

4.4 Reserved exploitable deep confined water resources could be treated as emergency water resources

Exploitable amount of deep confined water resources is composed by leakage recharge of confined aquifer under exploiting condition, lateral recharge and consumptive storage. According to primary estimate, exploitable amount of deep confined water is 110.0×108 m3/a in China, among the total amount, gross amount of leakage recharge and lateral recharge is 65.0×108 m3/a, consumptive storage is 45.0×108 m3/a. It is annual exploitable resources in the condition of protecting environment.

At present, except Hebei Plain, Tianjin and Shanghai, deep confined water exploitation degree is low in China, and it has some exploitable potential. According to primary estimate, annual exploitable amount of deep confined groundwater is 17.2×10⁸ m³/a, in fact, exploitation amount is 35.1×10⁸ m³/a in 2000, over exploitation 17.9×10⁸ m³/a; annual exploitable deep groundwater is 3.9×10⁸ m³/a in Tianjin, actual exploitation amount is 3.1×10⁸ m³/a in 1999, it is balanceable on the whole.

5 Advice for sustainable development and utilization of groundwater resources

Rational plan exploitation according to groundwater resources and environmental carrying capacity. Act according to actual circumstances；2.Save groundwater, and increase utilization ratio；3. Protect groundwater from pollution；4.Exploit potential by adjusting measures to local conditions and find new groundwater resources; 5. Found groundwater reservoir, and realize united control for surface water and groundwater.

Reference

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