Assessment of Groundwater Function in North China Plain
华北平原地下水的功能特征与功能评价

In the past decades, the assessment on groundwater disaster was carried out with more emphases on its resource attributes rather than its ecological and geological environment function in North China plain, which led to many environmental problems. To comprehensively realize groundwater resource function, ecological function and geological environment function and focuse on the natural attributes of groundwater system, we used the regional water cycle theory, systematology and the analytic hierarchy process method (AHP) to develope the primary concepts and methodology of groundwater function assessment, including rules, criteria, mathematic method and indicator system. Then a case study was carried out in the catchment of Hutuohe river basin as the typical area of North China Plain, by which the connotation of groundwater function was enriched and the regionalization method was improved. Although the methodology discussed in this paper has already been adopted by the China Geological Survey in The Technical Requirements of the Investigation and Assessment of National Groundwater Resource and the Relevant Environmental Problems(No.2), it should be pointed out that groundwater function assessment is a new subject in China and there are still many conresponding problems that need solving, so the theory and methodology should be tested and improved in vast practice. Only in this way could the theory and methodology become more concrete for assessing groundwater and social economy development. The purpose of this paper is to collect advices or directions from hydrogeological experts. The assessment on groundwater function has greatly progressed in the neglected problems of groundwater ecological and geological environment from unreasonable exploitation of groundwater in North China. But there are some problems about how to understand and choose the attribute index of the assessment system of groundwater function, which affect assessment results. To understand and choose the attribute index is of great importance to the assessment results, because the attribute index is the core index of the assessment system of the groundwater function. The constitution, primary concepts, characteristic and meanings of the attributive index of groundwater function assessment system has been expounded in this paper.