Analysis of the Sustainability of the development of a small phreatic aquifer in northern China

Groundwater is a main water resource for most of the cities in North China. By virtue of the self-regulation potential of shallow aquifers, the yearly or long-term asymmetric water recharges, if properly operated, can be converted into valuable water resources to increase the water supply for corresponding cities, especially in arid periods. This is of great practical importance for cities in North China, where the annual Precipitation differs greatly from year to year and mainly centralizes in summer To quantitatively estimate the self-regulation potential of such shallow aquifers, a representative case study was carried out in a small aquifer (about 400 km) in Beijing. A two-dimensional (2D) finite element flow model coupled with a Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate the evolution of the flow system according to climate variability and to assess the reaction of the aquifer system under different scenarios of groundwater development. The results indicate that the aquifer has a potential to supply sustainably almost double of the current abstraction (about 0.3 Mm(3)/d) in drought periods. When the water demand decreases in abundant precipitation years, the water table can recover rapidly after stopping the emergency wells, which are for overexploitation in drought years.