Groundwater environment evolution and sustainable utilization of water resources in Xi'an City

The present paper is aimed at providing a comprehensive report on the current situation of the groundwater resources in the city of Xi'an and its changing situation in recent years.As is known,water resources is of primary importance for the survival of Northern cities.The research in this way has become an internationally hot topic in terms of hydrological and environmental projects. Though many researchers have made relevant studies with the groundwater resources with the cities,like Shijiazhuang,Datong,Yinchuan and Jinan,little has been done on the groundwater environmental evolution in Xi'an.Therefore,seeing the urgent need,present authors would like to take Xi'an as a case study,for which we have collected our groundwater monitoring data for more than 20 years in Bahe and Fengzao river reaches from the point of view of groundwater reservation and conservation.Based on the groundwater monitoring data,the trend of groundwater environmental evolution and driving factors have been studied by means of mathematical simulation and CoreDRAW mapping.The results of this investigation show that groundwater level has been fluctuating in the following phases: fluctuating up-and-down,lowering,slow dropping,rapid dropping and then gradually recovering under the influence of natural changes and human activities,however,the groundwater quality changes very little with minor amount of toxic elements detected at different degrees.In addition,it has been found that previous groundwater environment evolutions were mostly affected by the precipitations,the river lateral seepage and/or large amounts of groundwater pumped out.Therefore,in order to ensure the rational exploitation/utilization of the groundwater resources,the city residents and industrial enterprises should rationally evaluate, protect water quality and adjust the proper distribution of water sources among the various users so as to make the city develop in a sustainable and harmonious manner.Therefore,it is necessary to strengthen the water quality management and protection in a well-planned way.