IWRA Proceedings

Under the water stress in the dry years in The Upper Central Plain Basin of Thailand, the excessive extraction of groundwater of this area has dramatically increased to meet high irrigation water demand. The cultivated activities rely on two mains dams, Bhumibol dam and Sirikit dam. Meanwhile, the groundwater resource become supplementary source especially in the dry season. Consequently, the water table has been dramatically falling in recent dry years. Moreover, the rainfall in region tends to decrease intensity in near future. Therefore, there are high risk water shortage crisis in near future due to insufficient surface water storage.
To develop sustainable strategy for irrigated agriculture in this region, this study aims to assess the intensive groundwater use and the sustainable groundwater extraction under climate change in The Upper Central Plain Basin of Thailand. Due to good bias performance, the study utilized bias correction data of IPSL-CM5A-MR 2.6 and MRI-CGCM3 scenarios to projected near future climate condition (2020-2040), especially natural groundwater recharge. The groundwater use was projected by applying current conjunctive water use ratio under climate change. Then, the near future groundwater use was input to regional groundwater model to investigate the groundwater drawdown hotspot and the future sustainable groundwater extraction in study area. The artificial recharge groundwater during wet season was also simulated in hotspot area to increase the sustainable yield of the aquifer in near future.
The study not only provide reliable intensive groundwater use to reduce water shortage risk. This information could be useful for groundwater management practices (such as natural base recharge and artificial recharge, conjunctive water management…).