The aim of this study was to examine the response of groundwater in the Punjab region in north-west India to current pressures of high levels of abstraction, pollution and changes in river flow, and forecast likely future trajectories.
Well at Sarai Nurmahal, Bist-Doab, Punjab. © Gaurav Madhopuri under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Key objectives
Key components to this analysis are an improved understanding of:
- collate historical water level responses to abstraction
- collect new evidence on recharge processes, groundwater quality, groundwater residence times and connectivity of the layered aquifer systems and surface water by repeated sampling of shallow and deep piezometers using a suite of environmental tracers
- monitor water level variations at 60-minute intervals in shallow and deep piezometers for one hydrological year
Bist-Doab field area
Groundwater in the Bist-Doab region in Punjab in north-west India (Figure 1) is heavily abstracted for drinking water and agriculture. Approximately 90 per cent of the region is irrigated using shallow (10 to 50 m deep) groundwater.
Figure 1 Location of Bist-Doab (approximately 9000 km2) and sampling points in India. BGS © UKRI.
Activities
- Groundwater sampling: pre-monsoon (May 2012) and post-monsoon (October 2012) sampling from 19 pairs of shallow (10 to 50 m) and deep (over 100 m) boreholes sampled across the catchment (Figure 2). The samples were analysed for full inorganic chemistry, including As, salinity, groundwater residence time indicators (CFCs; sulfur hexafluoride) and recharge/source tracers (stable isotopes)
- Installation of data loggers:
- deep aquifer: automatic data loggers were installed in six new monitoring boreholes within the deep aquifer
- shallow aquifer: ten-day monitoring at selected sites to investigate hydrological responses to monsoon recharge and abstraction for irrigation
- Shallow unsaturated zone recharge tracer study: this study focused on the north-east catchment area of the Bist-Doab region. A tracer (enriched water in deuterium and bromine) was added to selected sites at the start of the 2012 monsoon and the first profile sampling undertaken in October 2012
Project team
The case study involves researchers from BGS and the National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, India.
Further reading
Lapworth, D J, Gopal, K, Rao, M S, and MacDonald, A M. 2014. Intensive groundwater exploitation in the Punjab: an evaluation of resource and quality trends. British Geological Survey Open Report OR/14/068. (Nottingham, UK, British Geological Survey.)
Lapworth, D J, MacDonald, A M, Krishan, G, Rao, M S, Gooddy, D C, and Darling, W G. 2015. Groundwater recharge and age-depth profiles of intensively exploited groundwater resources in north-west India. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 42(18), 7554–7562. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065798
Contact
Please contact Alan MacDonald for further information.