Water Resour Manage

DOI 10.1007/s11269-014-0647-6

A Holistic System Approach to Understanding

Underground Water Dynamics in the Loess Tableland:
A Case Study of the Dongzhi Loess Tableland
in Northwest China

Changbin Li & Jiaguo Qi & Shuaibing Wang &

Linshan Yang & Wenjin Yang & Songbing Zou &
Gaofeng Zhu & Wenyan Li

Received: 28 February 2013 / Accepted: 24 April 2014

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract The Loess Plateau in northwest China is one of the most water-scarce areas on
Earth. In the loess tableland (LT), the underground water system is the most critical component
of terrestrial ecology and the local economy. In this study, a new approach was developed to
holistically simulate monthly and yearly underground hydrology in the LT, including the soil
water reservoir (SWR) and the groundwater reservoir (GWR). The approach was applied to the
Dongzhi Loess Tableland (DLT) to simulate SWR and GWR from 1981 to 2010 to capture the
underground water dynamics. The results suggest a strong monthly variability of the SWR,
with most time of a year having higher evapotranspiration than the precipitation infiltration,
leading to a soil water deficit. The rainy season is the primary period for deep zone recharge,
and the water balance of the GWR is generally positive from July to October and negative
from November to the following June. In the DLT, The decrease in vertical recharge and
increase in human extraction have led to a total groundwater level drawdown of 15.7 m and
considerable spring attenuation with an annual ratio of 1.19 % over the past 30 years. If ground
water withdraw rate remains the same as since 1981, the GWR will be depleted within
approximately 100 years.

C. Li (*) : S. Wang : L. Yang : W. Yang : G. Zhu : W. Li

Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University,
Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China
e-mail: [email protected]

J. Qi
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China

C. Li : J. Qi
Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, 204 Manly Miles Building,
1405 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA

S. Zou
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute,
Lanzhou 730000, China
 C. Li et al.

Keywords Soil water reservoir . Groundwater reservoir . Dynamics . Extraction . The Dongzhi
Loess Tableland

1 Introduction

Compared with the hills or ridges in the water-scarce Loess Plateau in China, the
flatter landscape of the loess tableland (LT) allows for the water recharge in deeper
zones through precipitation infiltration or percolation, which is ideal for agriculture
and, therefore, for the relatively long-term sustainability of human populations (Zhu
2000). After more than 1,000 years of modifications, such as deforestation and
cultivation, the terrestrial ecology in the LT has severely deteriorated (Zhu and Ren
1992), leading to regional environmental, ecological and social consequences such as
severe soil erosion, low land productivity, poverty and social vulnerability (Li et al.
2010a).
Conceptually, the underground water system in the LT can be vertically divided
into two layers according to its hydraulic characteristics. The upper layer is the soil
water reservoir (SWR), where the areal precipitation infiltrates and evapotranspiration
process continues (Tillman et al. 2012). The lower layer is the relatively independent
groundwater reservoir (GWR), where the water is often buried deep (Kalbus et al.
2009; Wang et al. 2005).
On average, only about 3 % annual precipitation is intercepted by the vegetation
canopy or less than 7 % as surface runoff in the LT area; majority water infiltrates
into the SWR (Guo et al. 2011; Zhu 2006; Zhao et al. 2013) and evaporates through
root uptake and soil evaporation (Freeze and Witherspoon 1967; Tu et al. 2009). A
very small portion of the soil moisture passes through the thick vadose zone and
recharges the GWR (Moore and Fisher 2012; Taylor and Alley 2002). Fast percolation
occurs in areas of lower loess topography, where vertical joints are present, resulting
in GWR recharge (Schaller and Fan 2009). As part of the underground water
resources, deep groundwater is a more reliable and safer source for human water
supply because there is no ET (Miguez-Macho et al. 2007). Studies also showed it
takes long time for SWR water to move to the deeper GWR. However, current human
extraction is both intense and effective, which might be the reason for the recent
quick drawdown of the groundwater level in many of the LTs (Tang et al. 1997;
Wang 2007).
In the LT area, underground water is the major additional supply for all types of local uses
(Wada et al. 2010). As socio-economic development has increased in recent decades, the
regional water demand has become much higher in many areas of the LT than what the local
GWR can provide (Cai 2002; Natural Resources Management and Environment Department
in FAO 2003), and over exploitation of the groundwater has continually increased (Xia et al.
2007). The patterns of recharge and discharge of the GWR in the LT have changed greatly
(Zhu et al. 2010), resulting in a continuous groundwater level drawdown (Sun et al. 2007;
Zhou and Wei 2010). Quantifying the extent of human impacts on the system is of great
importance for local water resources planning and development.
Models commonly used for groundwater system quantification include Feflow (e.g., Feng
et al. 2011), ModFlow (e.g., Langevin and Guo 2005), and GMS (e.g., Gurwin and
Lubczynski 2005), where spaces are discretized by finite elements or finite difference methods
and physical processes are partially included. Limitations of those models’ application include
complicated parameterization in space and time. Almeida et al. (2013) reported groundwater
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

quantification by coupling Darcy’s Law and the continuity equation within a GIS environment.
These studies primarily focused on determining the sources and sinks to the underground
system; however, they do not include the relationship between the underground system and
surface hydrology.
The objective of this study is to better understand the underground water dynamics under
human influence using a holistic approach (Fig. 1) with a case study in LT area, which can
likely be generalized to influence other similar studies.

2 Methodology

2.1 SWR Variability

2.1.1 SWR Recharge

To quantify the SWR dynamics (Fig. 1), we determined the average monthly infiltration into
the SWR (WS−P) by calculating the difference between the monthly precipitation (P) and the

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the holistic system approach quantifying the underground water system in the TLs.
The underground water system and the surface water system driven by precipitation interact through infiltration/
percolation and spring outflow/abstraction to each other
 C. Li et al.

surface runoff as simulated by the SWAT model (RSWAT) (Arnold et al. 1998, 2000; Neitsch
et al. 2002; Shi et al. 2013):
W S−P ¼ P−RSWAT ð1Þ
where WS−P, P and RSWAT are all in mm.
Additional agricultural irrigation (including surface water and well abstraction) is also a
source of vertical recharge of the SWR (Kirby et al. 2013). This recharge (WS−I) mainly occurs
in the growing season from April to October and can be estimated by:
.
W S−I ¼ ðQSURF þ QWELL Þ AIRR  1000 ð2Þ

where WS−I is in mm, QSURF (m3) and QWELL (m3) are the quantities of surface water and
extracted groundwater, respectively (Bureau of hydrologic monitoring and survey of Gansu
Province 2009; Li 2013), AIRR (m2) is the irrigated area and 1,000 is the multiplication factor.
The total vertical recharge to the SWR (WPS) is the sum of the above two components:
W PS ¼ W S−P þ W S−I ð3Þ

2.1.2 Land-Surface ETC

The evapotranspiration is determined by vegetation transpiration and soil water evaporation

(Galleguillos et al. 2011; Tartachnyk and Blanke 2008; Comair et al. 2012). The single crop
coefficient (KC) (Allen et al. 1998) was used to calculate monthly actual evapotranspiration
(ETC):
ET C ¼ K C  ET 0 ð4Þ
where ET0 is the reference evapotranspiration (Li et al. 2013).
KC represents the terrestrial process, including vegetation transpiration and soil evaporation,
needed for a medium-time-scale ETC calculation. A relationship between KC and the Leaf
Area Index (LAI) has been developed for the Loess Plateau in China (Kang et al. 2003):

0:39 þ 2:27  LAI

KC ¼ ð5Þ
LAI þ 6:68
LAI can be estimated from the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (Zhao
2003):
 . 
LAI ¼ SQUARE NDVI  ð1 þ NDVI Þ ð1:0001−NDVI Þ ð6Þ

NDVI is calculated using NIR (r4) and R (r3) wavebands radiance (Curran et al. 1992;
Nemani and Running 1989):
.
NDVI ¼ ðr4 −r3 Þ ðr4 þ r3 Þ ð7Þ

ET0 is derived by applying a corrective coefficient (KP) to the pan observations (Epan):

ET 0 ¼ K P  Epan ð8Þ
Landsat satellite images were used to calculate LAI, which was linearly extrapolated to
annual LAI values (Li 2006; Zhan et al. 2004).
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

2.1.3 SWR Dynamics

The difference between the vertical recharge WPS and surface ETC results in the
monthly dynamics of the SWR. A positive value indicates a soil water surplus and
a negative value indicates a water deficit. The monthly soil water storage (ΔWS) is
determined by:
ΔW S ¼ W PS −ET C ð9Þ

2.2 GWR Variability

2.2.1 Vertical Recharge

The vertical recharge to the GWR includes two components: the relatively fast local
percolation that occurs with or shortly following precipitation (de Vries and Simmers
2002; Tang et al. 1997) and the slow and deep soil moisture transportation from
precipitation or irrigation (Huang and Pang 2011; Wang 2007), which is assumed to
occur after land-surface ETC. This assumption reflects an overall superiority of root
uptake over soil potential-driven transportation. That is, water in the SWR is available
for ETC first and then percolates deep if there is any remaining surplus. Total vertical
recharge to the GWR (WGR) can be calculated empirically by:
W GR ¼ ΔW S  αSR þ P  αLR ð10Þ
where αSR and αLR are recharge coefficients for soil water diffusion and local percola-
tion, respectively.

2.2.2 Spring Outflow

According to our field investigation, spring flow in the LT area occurs mainly in two forms:
zonal overflow at the edge of the LT and outflow at the spring holes. The former varies along
with the monthly groundwater fluctuation while the latter is relatively stable at the lower
outcrops.
For the zonal spring overflow, the underground system is simplified as a linear reservoir
like the GWR, and the area averaged drawdown (WSPR−Z) can be calculated based on Darcy’s
law (Freeze and Cherry 1979; Rimmer and Hartmann 2011):
.
W SPR−Z ¼ k  G  J A  1000 ð11Þ

where k is the saturated hydraulic conductivity (m/month), G (m2) is the area of the overflow
zone, J is the hydraulic gradient and A (m2) is the GWR area. G is determined by the overflow
thickness of the aquifer (above the impermeable stratum Q1 and below the groundwater level)
and the length of the overflow zone. Both values can be approximated using geological and
hydrogeological data:


G ¼ H GW −H Q2  LSPR ð12Þ

where HGW (m) is the groundwater level, HQ2 (m) is the elevation of the bottom layer Q2 and
LSPR (m) is the length of the overflow zone along river valleys determined by multiplying the
number and size of cells along the overflow zone.
 C. Li et al.

Area averaged drawdown by the outflow at the spring holes (WSPR−H) can be determined by:
.
W SPR−H ¼ QSPR−H A  1000 ð13Þ

where QSPR−H (m3) is spring outflow quantity at the holes.

The total drawdown by springs (WSPR) can be calculated by:
W SPR ¼ W SPR−Z þ W SPR−H ð14Þ

2.2.3 Human Drawdown

The average monthly drawdown of groundwater by human (i.e., artificial) extraction (WWELL)
can be calculated by:
.
W WELL ¼ QWELL A  1000 ð15Þ

where QWELL (m3) is the quantity of the monthly groundwater extraction.

2.2.4 GWR Dynamics

Changes in groundwater level (ΔWG) can be used to describe the GWR dynamics.
These changes over a certain time-step can be quantified by the algebraic sum of the
recharge and discharge of the system:
ΔW G ¼ W GR þ W GD ð16Þ

A positive value indicates a rise in water level and a negative value indicates a drawdown.
WGD (mm) is the discharge of spring outflow and well extraction.

2.3 Aquifer Depletion Assessment

To determine how long the GWR will be available for local water supply, the Aquifer
Depletion Rate (ADR) was used to estimate the deterioration velocity of the GWR as
influenced by human drawdown:
.
ADR ¼ ðH 1 −H 2 Þ N ð17Þ
where H1 and H2 (mm) are observed or simulated groundwater levels at the beginning and end
of the time period and N is time in years or months. Given an invariable impermeable stratum,
(H1−H2) represents the change of the aquifer thickness.

2.4 Accuracy Assessment

2.4.1 Soil Reservoir

The Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency Index (NSE) (Nash and Sutcliffe 1970) was used for model
simulation accuracy assessment:
Xn
2
O j −S j
j¼1
ce ¼ 1− X  2 ð18Þ
n
j¼1
O j −Ō
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

where ce is the NSE, Oj (mm) and Sj (mm) are the observed and simulated surface runoff,
respectively, O (mm) is the mean of observed surface runoff and n is the length of the time
series.
Simulations of soil water content and transport from the SWR down to the GWR
were difficult to calibrate at a monthly scale because of the lack of in-situ experi-
ments or observations. We compared our simulations with other recently reported
results.

2.4.2 The GWR

If there is no external disturbance the GWR dynamics of the independent system obey the
principle of water balance during a certain period of time (Finch 1998). Typically the average
multi-year total recharge (WGR) equals that of the discharge (WGD). Therefore, the storage
variable (ΔWGR) can be expressed as:

ΔW G ¼ W GR −W GD ¼ 0 ð19Þ
Under conditions of human extraction or recharge, the natural pattern described in
Eq. (19) for the GWR is no longer valid, and ΔWG will not equal zero along with
fluctuations of the groundwater level. In such a case, the system balance can be
modified as:
W GR −W GD  ΔH ¼ X ð20Þ
where ΔH (mm) is the observed groundwater fluctuation over a certain time period
and X (mm) is the absolute difference between the simulated and observed ground-
water level dynamics. The relative difference (δ, %) can be used to estimate the
accuracy of the groundwater system simulations:
.
δ ¼ X W GR  100% ð21Þ

Generally, for an reliable hydrologic prediction, the accuracy of the GWR calculation is
satisfactory or accepted when |X| is relatively small or |δ|≤20% (Tian 2011).

3 Study Area and Data

The study area is Dongzhi Loess Tableland (DLT), located in the eastern Gansu between
107°26′ and 107°57′ E and 35°16′ and 36°08′ N (Fig. 2a) and surrounded by four deep-
cut rivers, the Malian, Jing, Pu and Caimiao, on its east, south, west and north edges,
respectively (Fig. 2b and c). The total area of the DLT is 2,800 km2, and the net area of
the tableland is 1,042 km2 (Fig. 2c). The mean annual temperature is 8.6 °C, and the
mean annual precipitation is 525 mm while annual pan evapotranspiration is approxi-
mately 1,600 mm.
The DLT is massive, thick loess sediment of Quaternary stratigraphy covering Tertiary
mudstone (N) and Cretaceous sandstone (K). The sequentially deep to shallow loessial
sediments are the dense and impermeable Q1, the relatively loose and water-carrying Q2 and
the jointed and collapsible Q3 (Gan 1982). The DLT is deep-cut and separated by river
channels, and the stratum outcrops include all the aforementioned geologic formations
(Fig. 3). The main aquifer is the Q2 over the impermeable Q1. The value of k is approximately
 C. Li et al.

Fig. 2 Location maps (a) and stream networks around (b) the LT area and (c) in the study area. The positions for
hydrometric stations/reservoirs, hydrometeorological stations, the 85 long-term observation wells, the 956 local
abstraction wells and the hydrogeological section are included

1.5 to 3.5 m/d, and the specific yield (sy) is 0.02–0.10, with a slow decrease in value with depth
(Qu 1991; Li 1999). The groundwater gradient is 8.5‰ in the central portion of the LT and
rises to 33‰ at the edge. Most pumping yield of a single well gradually decreases from the
center of the LT to the edge, and the maximum single abstraction is approximately 1.6 million
L/d.
Precipitation observations from 4 hydrometeorologic stations in the study area were used to
drive the SWAT model. Groundwater data from 85 long-term monitoring wells were interpo-
lated to determine the groundwater level fluctuation and to validate the Darcy’s Law-based

Fig. 3 The hydrogeological profile and the natural recharge and discharge in the DLT (the horizontal direction of
the profile is corresponding to Figure 3c)
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

simulation of spring overflow, which was spatially averaged to verify the comprehensive
results from the holistic approach for the underground water system dynamics in the DLT.

4 Results

4.1 Parameterization and Accuracy Assessment

4.1.1 Surface Water

The Curve Number value (CN, Table 1) was defined based on overlaid land use and soil types,
according to past studies of the Loess Plateau in China (Li et al. 2010b, 2012). The SWAT
model was trained and tested in sub-basins of the Jing River Watershed (Fig. 2b). Model
calibration and validation were conducted based on the comparison of the monthly simulated
and observed data from 1981 to 2000 and from 2001 to 2010, respectively. The coefficients of
correlation (R2) were 0.72 and 0.82, and the NSE of the two processes were 0.71 and 0.70,
respectively, which indicates a moderately satisfactory model accuracy.
Equations 5–8 were used to simulate the areal ETC in the DLT based on the remote-sensing
approaches and pan observations. Annual distribution of the LAI is described as in Fig. 4.
KP in Eq. (8) was valued 0.71 as in the semi-arid loess area (Zhao 2003; Li et al. 2013).
Simulations for different land uses were analysed as listed in Table 2.

4.1.2 The SWR

The monthly infiltration plus the irrigation water in arable areas (395 mm/a, averaged from
April to September for monthly irrigated recharge to the SWR), were used to calculate the soil
water content by subtracting ETC then dividing by the infiltration depth (200–500 mm). Soil

Table 1 Overlaid land uses and soil types and the corresponding CN value

Land use-soil type Description/texture Area (Km2) Areal PCT (%) CN

AGRL-CJT Slope rain-fed cropland-sandy clay loam 47.21 1.68 72.52

AGRL-HLT Slope rain-fed cropland-silty clay loam 87.52 3.13 70.34
AGRL-HMT Slope rain-fed cropland-silty loam 399.19 14.26 73.67
AGRR-CJT Plain irrigated cropland-sandy clay loam 25.33 0.9 74.13
AGRR-HLT Plain irrigated cropland-silty clay loam 452.36 16.16 71.95
AGRR-HMT Plain irrigated cropland-silty loam 216.22 7.72 75.28
URMD-CJT Built-up-sandy clay loam 1.82 0.07 87.31
URMD-HLT Built-up-silty clay loam 66.6 2.38 86.22
URMD-HMT Built-up-silty loam 23.75 0.85 87.89
FRSD-CJT Woodland-sandy clay loam 5.17 0.18 77.63
FRSD-HLT Woodland-silty clay loam 58.27 2.08 75.45
FRSD-HMT Woodland-silty loam 69.96 2.5 78.78
RNGE-CJT Grassland-sandy clay loam 112.24 4.01 78.54
RNGE-HLT Grassland-silty clay loam 380.63 13.59 76.36
RNGE-HMT Grassland-silty loam 851.75 30.42 79.69
WATR-HMT Water-silty loam 1.99 0.07 92.00
 C. Li et al.

Table 2 Simulated ETC based on land use (mm)

Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Annual

Forestland 0.0 0.0 26.8 59.5 99.5 101.4 151.0 104.0 54.3 24.8 15.7 0.0 637.1
Grassland 0.0 0.0 23.6 52.0 87.0 88.8 133.3 91.5 47.4 21.6 13.8 0.0 559.1
Water area 0.0 0.0 27.5 60.7 101.3 101.4 152.2 103.7 53.9 24.6 15.9 0.0 641.3
Built-up 0.0 0.0 21.6 46.9 78.6 80.1 120.9 82.7 42.7 19.4 12.5 0.0 505.5
Rain-fed arable 0.0 0.0 22.8 49.7 83.3 83.7 126.9 86.1 44.3 20.2 13.2 0.0 530.1
Irrigated arable 0.0 0.0 25.7 56.6 94.7 95.3 143.4 97.8 50.7 23.1 14.9 0.0 602.3
Average 0.0 0.0 24.7 54.2 90.7 91.8 138.0 94.3 48.9 22.3 14.3 0.0 579.2

water content in months with positive budgets ranged from 8.9 to 18.7 % (From July
to October), which approximately agreed with previously published studies (Fu et al.
2003; Chen et al. 2007; Zhao et al. 2010; Fu et al. 2011), while in the months with a
negative budget (soil water deficit for ETC) validation was not performed for the lack
of comparative data.

4.1.3 The GWR

The parameter αSR was set to 16 % according to Wang (2007) and the recharge
coefficient of the local rainfall percolation (αLR) was calibrated according to Huang
and Pang (2011), resulting in a 3.81 % monthly precipitation contribution value. The
annual spring outflow was calculated as 22,084 million L, with a relative error of
6.3 % compared with the volume of 23,980 million L surveyed by the Bureau of
Hydrologic Monitoring and Survey of Gansu Province (2009). Groundwater drawdown
increased from 18,000 million L in the 1980s to 33,000 million L in the 2000s.
The simulated annual total of vertical recharge to the GWR was 33.40 mm, and the total
discharge was 60.53 mm. Given the specific yield value of 0.067 (Qu 1991; Tian 2011), there
was an average groundwater level drawdown of 405 mm. We averaged the observations of the
85 monitoring wells from 2008 to 2009 and found an annual groundwater drawdown of
429 mm. The absolute error of X in Eq. 20 is 25.6 mm/a, and the relative error of δ in Eq. 21 is
13.9 %, representing an overall acceptable simulation accuracy.

4.2 Applications to the DLT’s Underground Water System

4.2.1 Monthly Characteristics

The monthly recharge and discharge of the SWR and the GWR are illustrated in Fig. 5.
For the SWR, most of the infiltration occurs in the rainy season from July to
September. The highest land surface ETC occurs from May to September in the growing
season. According to differences in the two above-mentioned factors, soil water in the
DLT always presents a water deficit in May and June. Due to increases in artificial
extraction, along with an accompanying decrease of spring flow, the GWR is always in
a negative balance. The large soil water recharge of monthly infiltration always re-
sponds to a positive soil water budget, a high recharge to the groundwater system and a
rising groundwater level (light blue stripe in Fig. 5), which indicates the large contri-
bution of the rainy season to the underground system.
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

Fig. 4 Linear hypothesis for monthly LAI in the DLT

Fig. 5 Monthly dynamics of the underground hydrology in the DLT over the past 30 years
 C. Li et al.

4.2.2 Yearly Variability

The surface ETC has clearly increased in the area (Fig. 5) and precipitation has declined
slightly (Fig. 6). Both changes have resulted in an overall decrease of vertical recharge to the
GWR over the past 30 years. In contrast, the human groundwater extraction has been
increasing for several decades (Fig. 6). Compared with levels in the 1980s, the precipitation
in the DLT declined by 3.8 %, and the ETC increased by 7.4 % after the year of 2000. These
changes have resulted in an 11.0 % decrease of vertical recharge to the GWR. The simulated
spring flow decreased by 35.6 %, leading to an annual spring attenuation mean ratio of 1.19 %.
Overall, the groundwater level has decreased by 15.7 m in the last 30 years.

5 Discussions

The holistic approach developed in this study has comprehensively considered other ap-
proaches or methods to quantify the water transmission from precipitation re-distribution till
the groundwater level fluctuation. The approach is clearer in mechanism expression and easier
to parameterize, and a better one to illustrate the underground system dynamic under a whole
background of regional hydrology. The approach could be a realistic way for planning and
assessment of underground water system in the LTs.
In the framework of the holistic approach developed in this study, soil water diffusion and
local precipitation percolation were determined by empirical coefficients approach instead of
physical-based hydrodynamic dispersion method, which should be further improved in our
future studies.
In the DLT, The annual difference between the vertical recharge and the natural spring flow
was approximately 4.22 mm/a since 1980s. The average thickness of aquifer Q2 is approxi-
mately 96 m in the DLT as of now. If there were no external disturbance the total recharge time
of the GWR is 910–2,276 years when the specific yield of the aquifer is considered to be 0.04
to 0.1, resulting in an average time of approximately 1,593 years. If other disturbances are
ignored, the DLT GWR can recharge fully over a time scale of 1,000 years.
The average thickness of the DLT aquifer was approximately 66.5 m at the beginning of the
1980s and approximately 50.8 m in 2010. The depletion rate for the DLT GWR was calculated
as 0.52 m/a. Given the average level of extraction over the past 30 years, about 97 years are
remaining to a complete depletion of the entire DLT GWR . Furthermore, due to the

Fig. 6 Annual/decadal variability of precipitation and the groundwater system

A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

continuous groundwater drawdown, the efficiency of the vertical recharge down to the GWR
will reduce, and thus, the depletion time may be shorter than the estimated. Based on these
findings, the fate of the GWR in the DLT is worrisome.

6 Conclusions

In this study, we developed and applied a holistic approach to quantify the underground water
dynamics in the LT area in China. It was found that most of the monthly precipitation was
consumed by ETC each year, which led to substantial deficits in soil water for terrestrial
vegetation in May and June. Most vertical recharge occurred in the deeper GWR during the
rainy season. The water balance of the GWR was generally positive from July to October and
negative from November to the following June. The decrease in vertical recharge and increase
in human extraction have led to a total groundwater level drawdown of 15.7 m and consid-
erable spring attenuation with an annual ratio of 1.19 % over the past 30 years.
Our results indicate that it would take approximately 1,000 years to fully recharge the GWR
without further human intervention in the DLT. However, with human activities maintaining
the average extraction rate as in the past 30 years, the GWR will be depleted within less than
100 years.

Acknowledgments This study was supported by the following grants: the NSFC Project (41001014), the NSFC
Key Project (91125010), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2014), the
National Key Research and Development Program of China (2009CB421306), the MAIRS Project funded by
the NASA LCLUC Program (NNX08AH50G) and the other two NSFC Projects (41240002; 91225301). We also
would like to thank the reviewers and editor for their constructive comments, which helped to significantly
improve the manuscript.

References

Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration-Guidelines for computing crop water
requirements-FAO Irrigation and drainage paper 56. FAO, Rome, 300, 6541
Almeida CN, Roehrig J, Wendland E (2013) Development and integration of a groundwater simulation
model to an open geographic information system. J Am Water Resour Assoc 50(1):101–110. doi:
10.1111/jawr.12119
Arnold JG, Srinivasan R, Muttiah RS, Williams JR (1998) Large area hydrologic modeling and assessment part I:
model development. J Am Water Resour Assoc 34(1):73–89
Arnold JG, Muttiah RS, Srinivasan R, Allen PM (2000) Regional estimation of base flow and groundwater
recharge in the Upper Mississippi river basin. J Hydrol 227:21–40
Bureau of hydrologic monitoring and survey of Gansu Province (2009) Groundwater resource survey and
evaluation report in the Loess platform of eastern Gansu. Lanzhou, Gansu (in Chinese)
Cai QG (2002) The relationship between soil erosion and human activities on the Loess Plateau. In Juren J (Ed)
Proceedings of the 12th International Soil Conservation Organisation Conference (pp 26–31)
Chen LD, Huang ZL, Gong J, Fu BJ, Huang YL (2007) The effect of land cover/vegetation on soil water
dynamic in the hilly area of the loess plateau, China. Catena 70(2):200–208
Comair GF, McKinney DC, Siegel D (2012) Hydrology of the Jordan River Basin: watershed delineation,
precipitation and evapotranspiration. Water Resour Manag 26(14):4281–4293
Curran PJ, Dungan JL, Gholz H (1992) Seasonal LAI in slash pine estimated with landsat TM. Remote Sens
Environ 39(1):3–13
de Vries J, Simmers L (2002) Groundwater recharge: an overview of processes and challenges. Hydrogeol J
10(1):5–17
Feng SY, Huo ZL, Kang SZ, Tang ZJ, Wang FX (2011) Groundwater simulation using a numerical model under
different water resources management scenarios in an arid region of China. Environ Earth Sci 62:961–971.
doi:10.1007/s12665-010-0581-8
 C. Li et al.

Finch JW (1998) Estimating direct groundwater recharge using a simple water balance model-sensitivity to land
surface parameters. J Hydrol 211:112–125
Freeze RA, Cherry JA (1979) Groundwater. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Freeze RA, Witherspoon PA (1967) Theoretical analysis of regional groundwater flow: 2. Effect of water-table
configuration and subsurface permeability variation. Water Resour Res 3(2):623–634
Fu BJ, Wang J, Cheng LD, Qiu Y (2003) The effects of land use on soil moisture variation in the Danangou
catchment of the Loess Plateau, China. Catena 54(1–2):197–213
Fu XL, Shao MA, Wei XR, Wang HM, Zeng C (2011) Effects of mono-vegetation restoration types on soil water
distribution and balance on a hillslope in Northern Loess Plateau of China. J Hydrol Eng. doi:10.1061/
(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000628
Galleguillos M, Jacob F, Prevot L, French A, Lagacherie P (2011) Comparison of two temperature differencing
methods to estimate daily evapotranspiration over a Mediterranean vineyard watershed from ASTER data.
Remote Sens Environ 115(6):1326–1340
Gan ZM(1982) From the development of the loess landscape understand the soil erosion of the loess plateau and
its prevention and treatment. B Soil Water Conserv: 6–10 (in Chinese)
Guo R, Li FM, He WY, Yang S, Sun GJ (2011) Spatial and temporal variability of annual precipitation during 1958–
2007 in Loess Plateau, China. In: Li D, Liu YD, Chen YY (eds) Computer and computing technologies in
agriculture IV. Springer, Boston, pp 551–560
Gurwin J, Lubczynski M (2005) Modeling of complex multi-aquifer systems for groundwater resources
evaluation—Swidnica study case (Poland). Hydrogeol J 13(4):627–639
Huang T, Pang Z (2011) Estimating groundwater recharge following land-use change using chloride mass
balance of soil profiles: a case study at Guyuan and Xifeng in the Loess Plateau of China. Hydrogeol J
19(1):177–186
Kalbus E, Schmidt C, Molson JW, Reinstorf F, Schirmer M (2009) Influence of aquifer and streambed
heterogeneity on the distribution of groundwater discharge. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 13:69–77
Kang SZ, Gu BJ, Du TS, Zhao JH (2003) Crop coefficient and ratio of transpiration to evapotranspiration of
winter wheat and maize in a semi-humid region. Agric Water Manag 59(3):239–254
Kirby JM, Mainuddin M, Ahmad MD, Gao L (2013) Simplified monthly hydrology and irrigation water use
model to explore sustainable water management options in the Murray-Darling Basin. Water Resour Manag
27(11):4083–4097
Langevin CD, Guo W (2005) MODFLOW/MT3DMS–based simulation of variable-density ground water flow
and transport. Ground Water 44(3):339–351
Li P (1999) Study on rational determination of specific yield in aquifer of loess area. J Hydraul Eng 11:38–41, in
Chineses
Li CB (2006) Research of distributed hydrologic modeling in a typical large scale watershed in Longxi Loess
Plateau of China. PhD Dissertation, Lanzhou University, pp 52–56 (in Chinese)
Li WY (2013) Dynamics of underground water system and rational utilization of water resources in Dongzhi
Loess Tableland. Master’s thesis, Lanzhou University (in Chinese)
Li CB, Qi JG, Feng ZD, Yin RS, Guo BY, Zhang F, Zou SB (2010a) Quantifying the effect of ecological
restoration on soil erosion in China’s loess plateau region: an application of the MMF approach. Environ
Manag 45(3):476–487
Li CB, Qi JG, Feng ZD, Yin RS, Zou SB, Zhang F (2010b) Parameters optimization based on the combination of
localization and auto-calibration of SWAT model in a small watershed in Chinese Loess Plateau. Front Earth
Sci China 4(3):296–310
Li CB, Li WY, Yang WJ, Yang LS, Yang ZY (2012) Study on daily rainfall-runoff simulation across the Zuli
river basin in the Chinese loess plateau. J Lanzhou University (Nat Sci) 48(1):1–7, in Chinese
Li CB, Yang LS, Wang SB, Yang WJ (2013) Estimation of the potential evapotranspiration based on module test
and application in the Tao River Basin. J Lanzhou University (Nat Sci) 49(6):727–732, in Chinese
Miguez-Macho G, Fan Y, Weaver CP, Walko R, Robock A (2007) Incorporating water table dynamics in climate
modeling: 2. Formulation, validation, and soil moisture simulation. J Geophys Res 112, D13108
Moore S, Fisher J (2012) Challenges and opportunities in grace-based groundwater storage assessment and
management: an example from Yemen. Water Resour Manag 26(6):1425–1453
Nash JE, Sutcliffe JV (1970) River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I—a discussion of
principles. J Hydrol 10(3):282–290
Natural Resources Management and Environment Department in FAO (2003) Groundwater Management IN
Water Report: the Search for Practical Approaches. http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y4502E/y4502e04.
htm#TopOfPage
Neitsch SL, Arnold JG, Kiniry JR, Williams JR, King KW (2002) Soil and water assessment tool theoretical
documentation version 2000. Blackland Research Center, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Temple
A Holistic Approach to Understand LT’s Underground Water Dynamics

Nemani RR, Running SW (1989) Estimation of regional surface resistance to evapotranspiration form NDVI and
Thermal-IR AVHRR data. J Appl Meteorol 28:276–284
Qu HL (1991) China arid and semi arid areas groundwater resources assessment. Science Press, Beijing, in
Chinese
Rimmer A, Hartmann A (2011) Simplified conceptual structures and analytical solutions for groundwater
discharge using reservoir equations. In: Nayak PC (ed) Water resources management and modeling.
InTech, New York, ISBN 979-953-307-369-8
Schaller MF, Fan Y (2009) River basins as groundwater exporters and importers: implications for
water cycle and climate modeling. J Geophys Res 114, D04103
Shi P, Ma XX, Hou YB, Li QF, Zhang ZC, Qu SM, Chen C, Cai T, Fang XQ (2013) Effects of land-use and
climate change on hydrological processes in the Upstream of Huai River, China. Water Resour Manag 27(5):
1263–1278
Sun YQ, Qian H, Wu XH (2007) Hydrogeochemical characteristics of groundwater depression cones in
Yinchuan City, Northwest China. Chin J Geochem 26(4):350–355
Tang YC, Dai GL, Wang XM (1997) Preliminary analysis of the loess groundwater recharge source in the
western loess platform area of Weihe river. Northwest Geol 18(4):85–89, in Chinese
Tartachnyk II, Blanke MM (2008) Temperature, evapotranspiration and primary photochemical responses of
apple leaves to hail. J Plant Physiol 165(17):1847–1852
Taylor CJ, Alley WM (2002) Ground-water-level monitoring and the importance of long-term water-level data
(No. 1217–2002). US Geological Survey
Tian YL (2011) Present condition analysis of groundwater resources in DongzhiyuanQingyang, Gansu. Water
Conserv Hydrop Technol 47(4):3–6, in Chinese
Tillman FD, Callegary JB, Nagler PL, Glenn EP (2012) A simple method for estimating basin-scale groundwater
discharge by vegetation in the basin and range province of Arizona using remote sensing information and
geographic information systems. J Arid Environ 82:44–52
Tu XB, Kwong AKL, Dai FC, Tham LG, Min H (2009) Field monitoring of rainfall infiltration in a
loess slope and analysis of failure mechanism of rainfall-induced landslides. Eng Geol 105(1–2):
134–150
Wada Y, van Beek LPH, van Kempen CM, Reckman JWTM, Vasak S, Bierkens MFP (2010) Global depletion of
groundwater resources. Geophys Res Lett 37:1–5
Wang R (2007) Hydrological transfer of precipitation, soil water and groundwater based on environmental
isotopes on the loess tableland. PhD Dissertation, Soil and Water Conservation and Ecological Environment
of Chinese Academy of Sciences Research Center (in Chinese)
Wang DQ, Liu ZZ, Yi LH (2005) Hydrogeological characteristics and groundwater systems of the erdos basin.
Quat Sci 25(1):6–14, in Chinese
Xia J, Ye AZ, Wang L, Zhang XC (2007) Water cycle mechanisms on the Loess Plateau, China: the Chabagou
catchment case study. Method Hydrol 311:10–17
Zhan ZM, Feng ZD, Qin QM (2004) Study on land surface evapotranspiration based on remote sensing data on
Longxi Loess Plateau of China. Geogr Geo-Inform Sci 20(1):16–19
Zhao CY (2003) Potential ecological conditions of GIS auxiliary simulation in ZuLiHe river basin in Gansu. PhD
Dissertation, Lanzhou University (in Chinese)
Zhao P, Shao MA, Melegy AA (2010) Soil water distribution and movement in layered soils of a dam farmland.
Water Resour Manag 24(14):3871–3883
Zhao L, Wang L, Liang X, Wang J, Wu F (2013) Soil surface roughness effects on infiltration process of a
cultivated slopes on the Loess Plateau of China. Water Resour Manag 27(14):4759–4771
Zhou B, Wei YT (2010) Discussing the groundwater environmental problems in longdong basin and prevention
opinion. Ground Water 32(1):119–120, in Chinese
Zhu XM (2000) Environment in loess plateau and “pedogenic reservoir”. Quat Sci 20(6):514–520, in Chinese
Zhu XM (2006) Rebuild soil reservoir is an rational approach for soil and water conservation on the loess plateau.
Bull Chin Acad Sci 21(4):320–324, in Chinese
Zhu XM, Ren ME (1992) Formation process of the loess plateau and a strategy of its management. Soil Water
Conserv Chin 2(119):4–10, in Chinese
Zhu RR, Zheng HX, Liu CM (2010) Changes of groundwater recharge and discharge in watershed of the loess
plateau. Sci Geogr Sin 30(1):108–112, in Chinese