A Study on the Cause of Layered Seawater Intrusion in the Daqing River Estuary of Liaodong Bay, China

Shumei Zhu, Zhifang Zhou, Qiaona Guo and Jun Ma
Additional contact information
Shumei Zhu: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Zhifang Zhou: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Qiaona Guo: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Jun Ma: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Groundwater over-pumping in estuary cities leads to a series of groundwater environmental problems that seriously restricts economic development. On the basis of field investigation and long-term monitoring data analysis, a three-dimensional numerical model was built in the estuary of the Daqing River in Liaodong Bay, China. The Quaternary overburden can be generalized into five layers according to particle composition and parameters in the vertical direction. There are many scattered irrigation wells pumping in the second layer, and three water source areas mainly pumping groundwater in the fourth layer. Long-term over-pumping in multi-layered aquifers causes onshore layered seawater intrusion. The laws of layered intrusion under the layered pumping were calculated and analyzed with SEAWAT-2000, and the sensitivity was analyzed with the Sobol method. Results showed that the intrusion area had an obvious layered law. Layered pumping directly affected the layered intrusion area, as different permeability, tide and barrage further affected it. The prediction study showed that the cone of depression recovered after the pumping-limit of water source areas, and the intrusion area started to retreat in the fourth layer. At that time, the pumping quantity of irrigation wells became the main reason for the increase of the intrusion area. If the water source areas are used to bear part of the irrigation demand, so as to reduce the pressure of pumping in the second layer, the overall intrusion area can be reduced by about 0.23 km 2 under the same pumping quantity.

Keywords: groundwater pumping; multi-layered aquifers; sensitivity analysis; numerical modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2842/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2842/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2842-:d:340771

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().