Numerical simulation and environmental impact prediction of karst groundwater in Sangu Spring Basin, China

The changes of development and utilization of karst groundwater in Sangu Spring Basin have made the original groundwater resource evaluation unable to meet the needs of future economic development. Based on analysis of existing data, combined with the characteristics of supplement, runoff and draining of regional karst groundwater, the Visual Modelflow software was used to build a numerical simulation model of Sangu spring Basin. The amount of karst groundwater resource and groundwater environment of the Basin were evaluated under different exploitation schemes, and the changes of karst groundwater environment in the future ten years were also predicted. The fitting error which is less than 0.5 m between the calculated value and measured value of the water level in the fitted borehole accounts for 93%. For the lithologically and structurally complex Sangu Spring Basin, the fitting effect of numerical simulation model was ideal. On the basis of the current mining amount of 111.80 million m(3)/a, the total redistributed exploited amount in the spring region was 61.79 million m(3)/a. Under the condition that the quantity of recoverable resources reached 173.59 million m(3)/a and under different precipitation schemes, all constraint conditions were satisfied, such as regional water level drawdown, maximum allowable water level drawdown in every simulated water source area and the flow rate of Guobi Spring. The results will provide a scientific basis for the rational development and utilization of karst groundwater in Sangu Spring Basin.