Capacity Building of a China Groundwater Information Centre

The objective of the project is to contribute to the socio-economic development of China by maximising the availability of renewable groundwater resources.

This can only be achieved if relevant quantitative and qualitative information on the groundwater situation is timely available.

The immediate objectives of the project are:

• To strengthen the capacity of the China Groundwater Information Centre by training its staff and provision of modern database, GIS and decision support information technology.
• To install REGIS system at the Centre and 3 pilot areas for the management and dissemination of groundwater information.
• To develop a REGIS China by customising, fine-tuning and adapting REGIS to meet China geographical and hydro-geological conditions and demands of Chinese users.
• To develop a DSP for supporting decision-making in groundwater management.
• To install 30 automatic groundwater recorders at each of thee pilot areas.
• To create a groundwater information system with REGIS for each pilot areas.
• To develop a regional groundwater model and identify optimal groundwater management scenarios for each pilot area.
• To train a total of 12 specialists for the development and application of groundwater information system and DSP system.
• To train a large number (120) of professionals for groundwater monitoring and information management, groundwater modelling and application of groundwater information systems for groundwater management.
• To increase public participating in groundwater management and awareness of decision-makers for protecting groundwater resources.

Groundwater is the main source for water supply in the People's Republic of China. Especially in North China, groundwater supply is more than 52% of the total water supply.

In the North China plain, which covers Beijing City, Tianjing City, and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Shanxi, groundwater accounts for 70% of the total water supply and more than 90% of the water supply for cities and industries.

However, intensive groundwater exploitation in last decades has caused serious decline of water tables. Moreover, groundwater is also vulnerable to pollution from various sources. In particular, in urban and industrial areas groundwater has been polluted in the past decades due to the rapid development of the economy and urbanisation.

For the effective management of groundwater exploitation, information on groundwater is needed. This information can be obtained only by a national groundwater monitoring network. The data collected from such a network should be stored in a computer database and analysed and presented by a groundwater information system.

A primary groundwater level monitoring network has been operated by the China Institute for Geo-environmental Monitoring (CIGEM) in cooperation with 31 provincial Geo-environmental Monitoring Stations.

There are in total 20,738 monitoring wells, 1422 of that are defined as national monitoring wells and the rest (19316 wells) as provincial monitoring wells. The monitoring network covers all provincial capital cities and important agricultural production plains and basins.

The project will establish a China Groundwater Information Centre at the CIGEM for the organisation of groundwater monitoring, data collection, storage, processing, analysis, presentation, and information dissemination to public and decision-makers for groundwater resources management.

The capacity of the Centre will be strengthened through the intensive training (on-the-job and tailor-made short courses) of its staff in using modern database, GIS, groundwater model and DSS technology. The project will provide the Centre innovative Dutch groundwater monitoring instruments (data loggers), groundwater information management system (REGIS), groundwater monitoring data analysis and modelling tools for modernising China groundwater monitoring, information management and dissemination activities.

Three representative groundwater basins are chosen as pilot areas for demonstrating the effectiveness of using modern information technology for sustainable groundwater resources management.

The products and outputs of the project are:

• A China National Centre for groundwater monitoring and information management with:
• 4 trained specialists for groundwater database and information system development and management;
• 2 trained specialists in the development and application of groundwater DSP;
• 4 project managers for the co-ordination of large scale international co-operation projects;
• a jointly-developed China groundwater information system REGIS China, and a groundwater management decision support system DSP;
• modern information facilities for application of database, GIS, groundwater model and DSP technology.
• For each of 3 pilot project areas:
• 2 trained specialists for setting-up groundwater monitoring database and information system;
• 2 trained groundwater modellers for computer simulation of groundwater flow and pollution;
• 1 trained specialist in optimising groundwater monitoring networks;
• 1 groundwater resources manager capable of developing scenarios for sustainable groundwater development while preventing negative environmental impacts;
• 30 modern data loggers (Divers) installed for the automatic recording of groundwater levels;
• a groundwater information system for the effective management and dissemination of groundwater information for public and decision makers;
• a regional groundwater model as a tool for sustainable groundwater resources management;
• optimal scenarios of the sustainable groundwater resources development for site-specific purposes.
• Increased public awareness for the protection of groundwater resources and optimal use of this limited resources for maximum social and economical developments.