Appraisal of Remote Sensing Technology for Groundwater Resource Management Perspective in Indus Basin

Gulraiz Akhter, Yonggang Ge, Naveed Iqbal, Yanjun Shang and Muhammad Hasan
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Gulraiz Akhter: China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences, CAS-HEC, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Yonggang Ge: Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
Naveed Iqbal: Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Islamabad 44790, Pakistan
Yanjun Shang: Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Muhammad Hasan: Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-12

Abstract: The dynamic nature and unsustainable exploitation of groundwater aquifers pose a range of management challenges. The accurate basin-wide hydrological assessment is very critical for the quantification of abstraction rates, spatial patterns of groundwater usage, recharge and discharge processes, and identification of critical areas having groundwater mining. This study provides the appraisal of remote sensing technology in comparison with traditionally prevailing tools and methodologies and introduces the practical use of remote sensing technology to bridge the data gaps. It demonstrates the example of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite inferred Total Water Storage (TWS) information to quantify the behavior of the Upper Indus Plain Aquifer. The spatio-temporal changes in aquifer usage are investigated particularly for irrigation and anthropogenic purposes in general. The GRACE satellite is effective in capturing the water balance components. The basin-wide monthly scale groundwater storage monitoring is a big opportunity for groundwater managers and policymakers. The remote sensing integrated algorithms are useful tools to provide timely and valuable information on aquifer behavior. Such tools are potentially helpful to support the implementation of groundwater management strategies, especially in the developing world where data scarcity is a major challenge. Groundwater resources have not grown to meet the growing demands of the population, consequently, overexploitation of groundwater resources has occurred in these decades, leading to groundwater decline. However, future developments in the field of space technology are envisioned to overcome the currently faced spatio-temporal challenges.

Keywords: groundwater; remote sensing; Indus Basin; Pakistan; GRACE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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