Groundwater budget deficit caused by drought and overexploitation

Abstract

Groundwater is generally influenced by overexploitation and climatic stresses particularly in aridand semi-arid areas of the world. The present research was conducted to identify the relativecontribution of drought and overexploitation to groundwater budget deficit in an unconfined aquifersystem. In order to simulate groundwater, the simulated recharge from WetSpass-M model wasapplied in the MODFLOW model along with other required packages. Moreover, the groundwaterbudget deficit caused by stressors was quantified through the use of calibrated groundwater modelpredictions. In order to better understand how the stressors affect the groundwater deficit, theaquifer was divided into Clusters 1, 2, and 3. Locally, the results showed that the contributionof stressors to groundwater budget deficit was the highest in Cluster 1 due to the groundwateroverexploitation and quick reaction of the groundwater level to the droughts. Overall, this researchshowed that both drought and overexploitation, with an average of 2.44 and 3.32 million cubicmeters, respectively, played a significant role in groundwater storage deficit. Furthermore, the effectof groundwater overexploitation was approximately 36% more than droughts.