Climate-resilient groundwater rationing in the mining environment: an operational framework of India

A precise, climate-resilient rationing/budgeting of groundwater resources is essential for planning its judicious utilization and development. This study undertakes a pioneering scientific assessment for incorporating the ArcGIS integrated with GEC-2015 guidelines into groundwater budgeting computations for the mining environ. The dynamic groundwater resource has been computed for a 10 km buffer study area of Batura opencast mine, Sohagpur coalfield, India, by applying the modified safe-yield approach cum lumped-parameter water balance method on the inflow and outflow components, to derive the change in storage. The results reveal that: the annual gross groundwater extraction is estimated at 17.41 × 10⁶ m³ while the annual extractable groundwater resource is estimated at 51.82 × 10⁶ m³. The recharge component of nearly twofold the extraction component indicates dominant diffuse (natural) recharge and only a minor need of managed (focussed) recharge measures like an artificial recharge in the study area. This amounts to a 16.87% stage of groundwater extraction value indicating that the study area falls in the safe category. Around 90% of the recharge in the study area is found to be natural replenishment through monsoon rainfall, which, coupled with the occurrence of cyclic fluctuation in the water-level in aquifers, establishes that mining in such areas is a climate-resilient activity vis-a-vis groundwater. Besides, the biological reclamation and afforestation of the mined-out area trigger the reversal of land-use pattern caused by the mining activity, minimizing its disruptive effect on the climate-driven water cycle, while upholding ecologically sustainable industrial development (ESID) principles in the mining areas.