The Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater

Introduction

Groundwater, a natural freshwater resource that is stored in aquifers, has

enormous contribution on human’s activities including agriculture, industry, and
household. In the regions that are experiencing dry or half dry weather such as middle
China, Africa and South America, groundwater is crucial due to the insufficiency of
surface water supply [1]. However, recent climate change has led to changes in both
quality and quantity of groundwater, which may affect freshwater supply and thus
human’s development. Hence, investigating the role of climate change in this
treasurable resource is imperative in order to facilitate mitigation and adaptation plan.

There are several conditions that brought by climate change, thus causing
changes in water cycle in further. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [2], high latitude region would experience increasing precipitation and
stronger warming effect, while subtropics and part of tropics would experience
decreasing precipitation and weaker warming effect. In addition, there would be a
significant increase in flooding and drought, indicating that wet region would become
wetter and dry region would become drier. Under such circumstances, groundwater
storage may change due to change in evaporation, precipitation, infiltration and
percolation. However, these effects may vary in different region [1].

Warming and flooding, on the other hand, may also affect the quality of
groundwater. The increasing global mean temperature gives rise to the rapid melting
of glacial ice and the rise in sea level, inducing landward migration of the saltwater-
freshwater interface, which indicates seawater intrusion [3]. As a result, the salinity of
groundwater would increase in costal aquifer. Besides, floods induced contamination
is significant in shallow, costal and unconfined aquifer with porous overburden layer.
Owing to the high hydraulic conductivities, there is a lack of attenuation to pollutants
when floods occur [4].

The aim of this project is to investigate the potential changes in both

groundwater quality and quantity under climate change, and the extent of such effects
in different regions through case study. Two sites are chosen to
1. Divergent effects of climate change on future groundwater availability in key
mid-latitude aquifers | Nature Communications
2. IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
3. wr009564 1..10 (researchgate.net)
4. water-12-00224 (1).pdf