Impact of socioeconomic development on groundwater in Yongding River (Beijing section) and Wenyu River Watersheds

The evolution of groundwater regime and the impact of socioeconomic development on groundewater of Yongding River (Beijing section) and Wenyu River watersheds were investigated and analyzed in this study. Results clearly showed trends of deepening groundwater embedment depth and increasing groundwater resource and extraction in these two watersheds from 1978 to 2008. Pearson analysis results based on data of groundwater embedment depth, groundwater resource, groundwater quality, and socioeconomic development from 1980 to 2008 showed that the deepening groundwater embedment depth of the Yongding River was significantly affected by both the outflow of Guanting Reservoir and the waterflow of Yongding River at the Sanjiadian station, where their Pearson correlation values were -0.677(p<0.01) and -0.659(p<0.01), respectively. Different from the results mentioned above, GDP per capita and urbanization rate in the Wenyu River significantly influenced the embedment depth and quality of its groundwater. Their Pearson correlation values were 0.910 (p<0.01) and 0.919 (p<0.01), respectively. In summary, these results indicated that outflow of Guanting Reservoir and waterflow of Yongding River markedly affected on the groundwater embedment depth of the Yongding River (Beijing section). In comparison, the socioeconomic development significantly impacted on the groundwater regime in the Wenyu River.