Innovative approaches for sustainable groundwater management

Abstract

Prioritization of groundwater (GW) blocks and identification of factors affecting declining trends (DTs) in seasonal GW are essential to know where and why GW management strategies need to be applied. GW scarcity is observed in the eastern part of Rajasthan, India, in which the Bharatpur division is situated. Thus, in the present study, two innovative approaches are applied for the prioritization of GW blocks and identifying factors affecting DTs in seasonal GW (1994–2018) of each block in districts of the Bharatpur division, Rajasthan. Prioritization of aforesaid GW blocks is performed by using trend analyses in aforesaid TS, while identification of factors affecting DTs in aforesaid TS is performed by analyzing trends in mean temperature (MNTEMP) and rainfall (RF). The results showed that in most of the blocks, GW is found to be declining due to decreasing RF and increasing MNTEMP. The aforesaid approaches are universally applicable.