Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2018) 25:6695–6706 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0983-1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The characteristic and influence factors of extinction depth of shallow groundwater on the high-latitude region: a case study on the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China Xihua Wang 1 Received: 22 October 2017 / Accepted: 7 December 2017 / Published online: 19 December 2017 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2017

Abstract Accurate estimation of extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) and identification of its influence factors are important for sustainable management of groundwater resources, ecological protection, and human health in intensively irrigated region. In this study, the ratio of actual groundwater depth and EDSG (RAE) method was used to understand the spatial variability of EDSG in the Sanjiang Plain, one of China’s largest grain production bases and China’s largest inland freshwater wetland region. The study showed a large spatial variation of EDSG in the region. Spatially, the sites, which were in the northeast and center had the deepest and the shallowest EDSG, whereby, indicate that it has higher and lower pumping potential capacity. Many factors including climate, soil parameters, vegetation and topography affected the EDSG. We also identified an area of 3.86 × 1010 m2, which accounting for 35.3% of the entire Sanjiang Plain, has exceeded the ESGD by over exploited for years. Knowledge of the variation and influence factors of EDSG for a certain plant system and the current shallow groundwater condition in the higher latitude region can be a key to the development of preventive actions for large quantity pumping groundwater and protection regional and sustainable development of irrigated agriculture. Keywords Extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) . High-latitude region . Ecosystem sustaining and groundwater resources management . Sanjiang Plain

Introduction Food and water security are inextricably linked in the development of regional economy, especially for regions with large population and temporal or sustained water imbalance (Prakashan et al. 2013). Shallow groundwater, which has the convenient and stabilize characteristic, has become a main source for irrigation all over the world. In the past several decades, shallow groundwater depths in many large-scale regions of the world have been reported to have decreased largely due to intensive agriculture and urban-

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Xihua Wang [email protected] 1

Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Zhonghua North street No.268, Shijiazhuang 050061, Hebei Province, People’s Republic of China

ization for instance, in the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China (Zhao and Han 2008); in the High Plain (Ogallala Aquifer), Central USA (Crosbie et al. 2013; Zeng and Cai 2014); and in the East Anglia, England (Herrea-Pantoja et al. 2012). Continuous decreasing in shallow groundwater depth has impacted the evaporation of phreatic and the water supply to land surface vegetation. The shallow groundwater depth beyond the extinction depth, where the evaporation of groundwater is zero, would lead to the vegetation degradation or shift. Therefore, identifying the extinction depth at a variety of spatial scales is imperative to sustainable management of groundwater resources in terms of usage, water quality protection, and surface vegetation supporting. Accurate estimation of extinction depth and its influence factors are important for sustainable management of water resources and human health in intensively irrigated agriculture. Many methods have been used in calculating groundwater extinction depth and analysis of its main influence factors including large lysimeter (Liu et al. 1998; Ge and Wang 2004), water fluctuation method (Zhao and Han 2008), and the empirical

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formula method (Wu and Zhu 2007). All these approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, with some of them being of high accuracy but costly, while some of them being data and computationally demanding, and while others being simple but generating less-detailed information. For the selection of these methods for local and regional groundwater,

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extinct depth estimation needs to consider both accuracy and cost-effectiveness. The Averyanov equation (Rong et al. 2009) method is a semi-empirical method considering both the empirical value and the actual groundwater condition. It is a simple method widely used to estimate groundwater extinct depth (Luo et al. 2013). The method only requires information on

Fig. 1 Geographical location of the Sanjiang Plain in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, and the groundwater monitoring well sites used in this study

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groundwater depth and potential evaporation of an aquifer. In addition, the method RAE is a ratio of actual groundwater depth and extinction depth, it can reflect the groundwater conditions in a certain region directly and clearly, and very useful to judge whether the groundwater depth is beyond the range of ideal ecology groundwater depth or not. As one of China’s most important rice production bases, groundwater is the most important irrigation source for its easy pumping and lower expense compared with surface water (rivers). The Sanjiang Plain has withdrew a large amount of groundwater for irrigation for past 50 years, and many groundwater depressions cone have been generated (Wang et al. 2014; Zhao and Han 2008; Yang et al. 2010). In addition, the Sanjiang Plain also has the largest area of inland freshwater wetland in China (1.14 × 104 km2) and wetland is the important infiltration region, creatures’ habitant region, and gene pool (Krause et al. 2007; Carol et al. 2013). However, the continuous dropping of shallow groundwater has serious impacts on wetland area and ecosystem; previous studies have Fig. 2 Groundwater depth for 2013 in the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China (Figure is taken from Wang et al. (2015))

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reported that 0.68 × 104 km2 wetlands have disappeared in the past 60 years (Song et al. 2008; Pan and Yan 2011; Wang and Yan 2012; Cao et al. 2012), and the trend of wetlands degradation in the Sanjiang Plain would continuously occur under the condition of rice cultivation area increasing (Li 2013). However, very few studies have been done in identifying extinction depth and its influence factors of shallow groundwater in this high-latitude region. The knowledge of the extinction depth and main influence factors of shallow groundwater for certain vegetation covers can be critical for developing integrated management strategies and plans to support regional ecosystem protection, sustainable agriculture, and groundwater resources management. It is, therefore, of relevance to both scientific research and management practices to identify the extinct depth and its main influence factors of shallow groundwater for this important food production base. In this study, we applied the approach of Averyanov’s equation and the RAE methods to assess the extinction depth of shallow groundwater for several major vegetation covers and

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its main influence factors on the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China.

Study area The Sanjiang Plain, which is located in the Heilongjiang Province, northeast China (130° 13′00″, 135° 05′26″ E, 45° 01′ 00″, 48° 27′56″ N) (Fig. 1), has the land area of 10.9 × 104 km2. It contains three rivers, Wusuli River (346.5 billion m3), Heilong River (61.9 billion m3), and the Songhua River (72.7 billion m3), in which the Heilong River and Wusuli River are international border rivers among China and Russia, The Songhua River is the inland river and finally into the Heilong River (Fig. 1). Climate of Sanjiang Plain belongs to a temperate continental monsoon climate; it has a long-term annual average temperature of 3.82 °C and an annual average precipitation of 600 mm, and about 60.0% of precipitation occurs from June to August (Li 2013). Topography of Sanjiang Plain is located on the Fig. 3 Spatial distribution of the extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) in the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China (Figure is taken from Wang et al. (2015))

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floodplain with a slope gradient between 0.01 and 0.02%. The aquifer mostly contains the Quaternary alluvial sediments. The aquifer materials include medium sand, silts, fine sand, sandy clays, and loam (Zhang et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2015). Main land use types in the Sanjiang Plain consist of meadow, crop upland, rice paddy, woodland, and wetland (Fig. 7). The shallow groundwater depth of Sanjiang Plain decreased quickly in the past 15 years, and it changed from 4.10 m in 1998 to 14.10 m in 2012 (Changye Farm) (Fig. 8) with the rapid soaring of pumping groundwater and planting rice area.

Methodology Data collection Groundwater depth of 102 wells from 2008 to 2012 was collected; the groundwater depth data were recorded 6 times (the 1th, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21th, and the 26th) of each month with an

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Fig. 4 Distribution of areas whose shallow groundwater depth is within (i.e., suitable), outside of (i.e., overexploited) EDSG across the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China

automatic water level recorder (Odyssey, Dataflow Co., New Zealand). To determine soil moisture and dry density of the Sanjiang Plain, soil sampling was conducted at 18 sites across the region (Fig. 1). At each site, we drugged a 1.50-m deep profile (Fig. 1) and collected soil samples from 0.00-, 0.20-, 0.40-, 0.60-, 0.80-, 1.00-, and 1.50-m depths (Fig. 1). Composed samples were made from 3 sites of the same soil types. We also collected climatic data recorded at 8 national weather stations from 1958 to 2012. The data were obtained from the Chinese Meteorological Data Sharing Service System. We also collected slope, soil type, DEM, and land use type data from the Jiamusi Bureau of Hydraulics. The extinction depth can be estimated with Averyanov’s equation (Rong et al. 2009).

the RAE across the whole Sanjiang Plain. The computation used the following equation: h h0 0 ≤ RAE≤ 1; suitable region RAE ≥ 1; overexploited region RAE ¼

where RAE is the ratio of actual shallow groundwater depth and extinction depth of shallow groundwater, h is the actual shallow groundwater depth, and h0 is the extinction depth of shallow groundwater. Table 1 Plain

Ratio of actual shallow groundwater depth and EDSG Using the information on spatial distribution of EDSG and current shallow groundwater depth (Fig. 2), we estimated

1 2

The area and percentage for different regions of the Sanjaing Name

Area/1010 m2

Percentage/%

Suitable region Overexploited region

7.09 3.86

64.7 35.3

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We calculated the suitable and overexploited regions by using the method named Bcon(x)^ which is from Roster calculation in the ArcGIS software package (Eris Co., 2012, American).

Results and discussion In order to research the impact of EDSG on the surface vegetation and its influence factors, several works (including soil samples and analysis the climate, topography data) have been done. Wang et al. (2015) have identified a range of the extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) between 2.0 and 14.3 m (Fig. 3). As for the entire Sanjiang Plain, the largest (14.3 m) and smallest (2.0 m) range of EDSG mainly occurred in the northeast and center of the Sanjiang Plain (Fig. 3). And the method of ARE has been used to calculate the groundwater suitable condition of the Sanjiang Plain in 2013. The study found that the suitable region has an area of 7.09 × 1010 m2, which accounts for 64.7% of whole area of the Sanjiang Plain; while for the overexploited region, a large amount of groundwater was pumped in the past few years, and the shallow groundwater depth has exceeded the range of EDSG and account percentage of 35.3% of the whole area of the Sanjiang Plain (Fig. 4 and Table 1).

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Many factors can affect the extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG), including (1) climate factors and its change, especially precipitation amount, intensity, and duration; (2) soil factors including antecedent soil moisture and dry density; (3) vegetation species and density; (4) groundwater (e.g., salinity level, groundwater level, and flow field); and (5) topography, the elevation and slope (Beamer et al. 2013). Shu et al. (2012) did an evapotranspiration of groundwater experiments, and he concluded that the evapotranspiration of groundwater is of positive correlation with the evaporation capacity, and the evaporation capacity is of positive correlation with the temperature and precipitation. In our study area, precipitation in the north was higher than that in the south, while the temperature was the opposite. However, the temperature in the north was similar with the south, while the precipitation in the north was about 100 mm higher than that in the south (Fig. 5). In addition, the climate changed quickly on Sanjiang Plain in recent years, with an average increasing rate of 0.26 °C/10a and 6 mm/10a for temperature and precipitation, respectively(Yin, 2013). Therefore, the EDSG would be of variety change under the future climate change. We found that the highest and lowest soil moisture content is located in northeast which is nearby the Wusuli river (S10– 67.48% with average) and southeast (S18–16.1% with average), respectively. And the biggest and smallest dry density

Fig. 5 The long-term annual average precipitation (P), evapotranspiration (ET), and temperature (T) of the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China

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Fig. 6 The variety of soil moisture content and dry density of the soil profile in the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China

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Fig. 6 (continued)

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Fig. 6 (continued)

occurred in the southeast (S17–1.90 × 10−3 g/mm3 with average) and (S14–0.6 × 10−3 g/mm3 with average), respectively (Fig. 6 and Table 2). In the northeast, it has the deepest EDSG, while it has the middle soil moisture content and dry density, maybe due to the effective combination. In the southeast, it has the deeper EDSG, while it has the lowest soil moisture content and highest dry density. In the northwest and southwest, they have the middle soil moisture content and dry density (Fig. 6 and Table 2). In addition, dominant soil types in the north were the albic soil and meadow soil, rich in porosity with a higher field moisture capacity. Main soil types in the south were the black soil and dark brown soil, with lower porosity, poor permeability, and field moisture capacity (Fig. 7b), Therefore, the Table 2 The soil moisture content and dry density of different sites

Location

NW SW NE

SE

Sites

S1 S4 S3 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S2 S5 S16 S17 S18

permeability coefficient of albic soil and bog soil (9.8 m/d) is north higher than that of the south (3.6 m/d), the water transport capacity in the north significantly higher than that of the south. As the plant type, the north were mainly covered by the farmland and wetlands with small vegetation cover; while in the south, the vegetation cover was mainly about the deciduous forest and coniferous forest(Fig. 7)c, d, which has a high interception and relatively low evaporation. The evaporation capacity in the north was far highly than the north (Fig. 6). As the groundwater situations, the groundwater was flowing from the southwest to northeast (Wang et al. 2016), In addition, as the elevation and slope, the north is mainly the low plain with elevation of 34-m a.s.l. and the slope only from 0.01 to 0.02%

Soil moisture content/% Minimum

Maximum

31.00 23.00 25.00 22.50 19.20 26.00 26.00 45.00 25.00 27.50 30.00 25.50 35.00 14.50 37.20 11.00 50.00 15.00

42.00 35.80 56.00 36.00 25.00 32.00 38.00 89.80 91.00 33.00 41.00 31.50 45.00 25.00 44.50 33.00 54.50 17.20

Dry density/10−3 g/mm3

Average

36.50 29.40 40.50 29.25 22.10 29.00 32.00 67.40 58.00 30.25 35.50 28.50 40.00 19.75 40.85 22.00 52.25 16.10

33.0 40.50 37.20

30.19

Minimum

Maximum

1.16 0.90 0.96 1.12 1.08 1.17 0.98 0.95 0.83 1.02 1.12 0.30 0.92 1.41 1.10 1.15 1.50 1.25

1.28 1.65 1.26 1.47 1.32 1.37 1.32 1.17 1.23 1.25 1.42 0.92 1.40 1.59 1.26 1.67 2.30 1.50

Average

1.22 1.28 1.11 1.30 1.20 1.27 1.15 1.06 1.03 1.14 1.27 0.61 1.16 1.50 1.18 1.41 1.90 1.38

1.2 1.11 1.12

1.47

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Fig. 7 The map of slope (a), soil type (b), DEM (c), and land use type (d) of the Sanjiang Plain, northeast China

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Sanjiang Plain had their shallow groundwater outside their EDSG ranges. If the present groundwater pumping continues, there may be severe consequences for surface vegetation in these areas. Funding information This research was supported by the 1:50000 environmental geology survey of the urban planning region of the northern of the central plain urban agglomeration area (DD20160244). The National Key Research and Development Plan effectively utilized and optimized of surface water and groundwater in the fault basin (2016YFC0502502). Meteorological data were provided by the Chinese Meteorological Data Sharing Service System. Compliance with ethical standards Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Fig. 8 The shallow groundwater depth of the Sanjiang Plain (Changye Farm), northeast China

References (Fig. 7c, a). So the above influence factors affected the extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) of the Sanjiang Plain together. The study on the extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) of the Sanjiang Plain mainly reflects the geological and hydrological conditions of this high-latitude region. Our study found that 35.3% the Sanjiang Plain have their shallow groundwater outside their EDSG ranges, and these areas are mostly located in the north and northwest parts of the Sanjiang Plain (Fig. 7d). These areas are almost solely large farmlands, where shallow groundwater has been pumped extensively in the past two decades, leading to a rapid drop of groundwater depth (Zhao and Han 2008). This is the first time to assess for EDSG of the Sanjiang Plain, and it can be very helpful for preventing shallow groundwater depth decrease continuously and the surface vegetation (Fig 8).

Conclusion This study is the first assessment on the spatial variability and main influence factors of extinction depth of shallow groundwater (EDSG) in the Sanjiang Plian, one of the most important rice production regions in China. The primary purpose of the study was to understand the spatial variation of EDSG and the suitable region distribution in this high-latitude region. Our findings on variable EDSG with the different vegetation in space suggest that the surface vegetation condition and the soil types with different soil moistures and dry density also should be considered when designing groundwater pumping plan: we can pump more groundwater in the north than that in the south region in the premise of withdraw groundwater cannot make the wetlands and other ecosystems degradation. In addition to the suitable regions assessment, the study yielded insights into the current shallow groundwater conditions in one of China’s largest grain production bases: 35.3% of the

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