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Groundwater recharge estimation using in-situ and GRACE observations in the eastern region of the United Arab Emirates

Alghafli, K; Shi, X; Sloan, W; Shamsudduha, M; Tang, Q; Sefelnasr, A; Ebraheem, AA; (2023) Groundwater recharge estimation using in-situ and GRACE observations in the eastern region of the United Arab Emirates. Science of the Total Environment , 867 , Article 161489. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161489. Green open access

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Abstract

The intensive agricultural expansion and rapid urban development in Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates (UAE) have resulted in a major decline in local and regional groundwater levels. By using the latest release (RL06) of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite measurements and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) products, the groundwater storage change was computed and compared with the time series of in-situ monitoring wells over the period of 2010–2016. The RL06 GRACE products from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), University of Texas Center for Space Research (CSR), German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), and JPL mass concentrations (MASCON) were assessed and have shown satisfactory agreements with the monitoring wells. The JPL MASCON reflected the in-situ groundwater storage change better than the other GRACE products (R = 0.5, lag =1 month, RMSE = 13 mm). The groundwater recharge is estimated for the study area and compared with the in-situ recharge method that considers multi recharge components from the rainfall, irrigation return flow and internal fluxes. The results show that the agreements between in-situ and GRACE-derived recharge estimates are highly agreeable (e.g., R2 = 0.91, RMSE = 1.5 Mm3 to 7.8 Mm3, and Nash-Sutcliff Efficiency = 0.7). Using the Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen's slope, the analyses of policies, number of wells, and farm areal expansion with groundwater time series derived from GRACE helped to validate GRACE and emphasize the importance of regulations for sustainable development of groundwater resources. The impacts of subsidy cuts after 2010 can be captured from the GRACE data in the eastern region of Abu Dhabi Emirate. The linear trend of groundwater storage anomaly obtained from GRACE over the period from 2003 to 2010 is −6.36 ± 0.6 mm/year while it showed a decline trend of −1.2 ± 0.6 mm/year after the subsidy cut. The proposed approach has a potential application for estimating groundwater recharge in other arid regions where in-situ monitoring wells are limited or absent.

Type: Article
Title: Groundwater recharge estimation using in-situ and GRACE observations in the eastern region of the United Arab Emirates
Location: Netherlands
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161489
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161489
Language: English
Additional information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: Eastern region of the Abu Dhabi Emirates, GLDAS, GRACE/GRACE-FO, Groundwater depletion, Irrigation return flow, Terrestrial water storage
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Inst for Risk and Disaster Reduction
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10165075
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