Impacts of Land Use Changes on Groundwater Resources in the Heihe River Basin
黑河流域土地利用变化对地下水资源的影响

Land-use and land-cover changes have great influence on the regional hydrological process. With three periods of remote sensing data since the 1960s and the long-term observed data of groundwater since the 1980s, the impacts of land-use and land-cover changes on the groundwater system in the middle reaches of Heihe River Basin in recent three decades are analyzed with the aspects of groundwater recharge and discharge system. The results indicate that with different intensities of land-use and land-cover changes, the impacts on the recharge were 2.602×108 m3/a and 0.218×108 m3/a in the former (1969-1985) and latter (1986-2000) fifteen years and those on the discharge were 2.035×108 m3/a and 4.91×108 m3/a. As long as under the reasonable range of exploitation (less than 3.0×108 m3/a), the land-use changes would control the changes of regional groundwater resources. Influenced by the land-use and land-cover changes and the large-scale exploitation in the recent decade, the groundwater resources present apparent regional differences in Zhangye Basin. Realizing the impact of land-use changes on groundwater system and the characteristics of spatial-temporal variations of regional groundwater resources may make the programming and management of water and soil resources more scientific and reasonable.