An approach for estimating sustainable yield of karst water in data sparse regions

This study presents an approach for transferring the qualitative analysis of groundwater sustainability for development to quantitative evaluation by an analogy of two similar regions. A concept of groundwater exploitation sustainability (GES), which is an evaluation index based on water supply capability, eco-geo-environment maintaining capability and the harmony between water and society, is put forward. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method is applied to calculate the GES for the Xiangshan and Dianchang karst groundwater sources in the Huaibei city, Anhui Province, China. The GES of the Xiangshan karst system was calculated to be 0.53 and represents medium exploitation sustainability, while that for the Dianchang is relatively high with a value of 0.70. These two karst systems are separate units but have similar hydrogeological conditions. The Dianchang area had limited groundwater observation data, while the Xiangshan area had long series of observation data, which enabled the computation of the sustainable yield. The sustainable yield of the Xiangshan karst area was used to calibrate the GES, and develop a linear equation between the GES and sustainable yield, which was used to calculate the sustainable yield of the Diangchang karst area as 40.4 million m³.