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Unprecedented large-scale aquifer recovery through human intervention

Long, Di ， Xu, Yuancheng ， Cui, Yingjie ， Cui, Yanhong ， Butler, James J. ， Dong, Liang ， Wang, Longfeng ， Liu, Dongyong ， Wada, Yoshihide ， Hu, Litang ， Bai, Guoying ， Li, Binghua ， Wang, Shufang ， Nong, Xizhi ， Cai, Yang ， Cheng, Chunsheng ， Mu, Yuhan ， Qiao, Yu ， Wang, Jianhua ， Wang, Hao ， Scanlon, Bridget R.

2025-08-07 NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 2025   16(卷), 1(期), (null页)

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    • Groundwater depletion is a critical global challenge, particularly in intensively cultivated drylands, with few documented cases of successful recovery. Here, we report a striking reversal of long-term groundwater decline in the North China Plain, one of the world's most severely depleted aquifers. Based on a comprehensive analysis of groundwater levels from over 2000 monitoring wells spanning the past two decades, we show that groundwater levels have risen at an average rate of similar to 0.7 m year(-1) since 2020, surpassing 2005 levels by 2024. This recovery is driven by a combination of large-scale surface water diversion from the humid south and stringent groundwater pumping regulations, further amplified by wet years (e.g., 2021). From 2005 to 2023, these policies reduced annual groundwater abstraction by similar to 12 km(3) and increased environmental water allocations to over 7 km(3) since 2021, promoting aquifer recharge and restoring environmental flows. Our findings demonstrate that rapid, large-scale groundwater recovery is achievable through integrated water management and targeted policy interventions across extensive regions (similar to 130,000 km(2)).

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