Assessing the Impact of Groundwater Recharge on Underground Reservoir Replenishment in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Groundwater is considered a fresh resource of water and its uses have tremendously increased in the recent past due to an increase in population, rapid urbanization, and industrialization. In India, the groundwater level is declining in some parts of the country due to over-exploitation, low or negligible recharge of aquifer systems, and unsustainable development of groundwater resources. The groundwater modeling is an important tool for studying the past and present groundwater behavior and in the development of future strategies for sustainable groundwater management plans. To study the Impact of groundwater recharge on the replenishment of underground reservoir, Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh has been selected which is one of the districts of the most populous state of India, Uttar Pradesh. An attempt has been made to develop a groundwater model using Modflow software to simulate the groundwater trends and predict future groundwater heads. The calibration and validation of the model were done for 5 years and 3 years respectively. The correlation coefficient for calibration and validation was found 0.85 and root mean square errors vary from 2.89 to 3.2m variation in future trends of groundwater heads. The results of the study show that the developed model can be effectively used to predict the future groundwater heads. The groundwater flow was observed from the northwest to southeast direction. It was predicted from the study that groundwater draft will increase by 10% with a decrease in groundwater level by approximately 0.24 m in the north-west direction by the year 2025. However, no impact was observed in the south side of the district and it was predicted that the groundwater level would remain the same in this zone during the next 3 years.