Human interventions, particularly groundwater pumping reduction and water diversion, accounted for 76% of groundwater recovery in the southern Hebei Plain, while increased precipitation contributed 24%, according to a new study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

The North China Plain is a crucial grain-producing region in China; however, long-term groundwater overexploitation has severely threatened regional water resource security and agricultural sustainability. In recent years, groundwater levels in the region have begun to recover due to the operation of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the implementation of groundwater extraction reduction policies, and increased precipitation.

Nevertheless, a systematic quantitative assessment of the respective contributions of increased precipitation, reduced groundwater pumping, and external water diversion to groundwater recovery, and how these contributions vary across cities, has been lacking.

To fill this gap, a research group led by Prof. SHEN Yanjun at the Center for Agricultural Resources Research (CARR) at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), developed a city-scale groundwater balance model. Taking seven cities in the southern Hebei Plain as the study area, they quantified the contributions to groundwater level recovery and conducted uncertainty analyses using Monte Carlo simulations.

The study found that the two anthropogenic measures—groundwater pumping reduction and water diversion—together contributed 76% to regional groundwater recovery, with pumping reduction accounting for 30% and water diversion accounting for 46%, while increased precipitation contributed only 24%. This indicates that human management measures have played a dominant role in groundwater recovery.

Uncertainty analysis demonstrated that the groundwater balance model exhibits good stability in attribution analysis. The findings highlight the need for differentiated groundwater management strategies tailored to different zones and categories.

The "moderately complex" water balance model features a clear structure, moderate data requirements, and stable results, providing a methodological reference for attribution studies in other areas facing groundwater overexploitation.

The above research results were published in the Journal of Cleaner Production under the title "Using a moderately complex model to quantify the contributions of increased precipitation, reduced pumping, and water diversion to groundwater recovery in the southern Hebei Plain", with Associate Professor LIU Xia from CARR as the first author and Professor SHEN as the corresponding author.

The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Innovation Group of Hebei Province, the International Partnership Program of the CAS, and the Hebei Innovation Capability Improvement Program.