Abstract:
The Indo-Gangetic aquifer is one of the world’s
most important transboundary water resources, and the most
heavily exploited aquifer in the world. To better understand
the aquifer system, typologies have been characterized for the
aquifer, which integrate existing datasets across the Indo-
Gangetic catchment basin at a transboundary scale for the first
time, and provide an alternative conceptualization of this aquifer
system. Traditionally considered and mapped as a single
homogenous aquifer of comparable aquifer properties and
groundwater resource at a transboundary scale, the typologies
illuminate significant spatial differences in recharge, permeability,
storage, and groundwater chemistry across the aquifer
system at this transboundary scale. These changes are shown
to be systematic, concurrent with large-scale changes in sedimentology
of the Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial aquifer,
climate, and recent irrigation practices. Seven typologies of
the aquifer are presented, each having a distinct set of challenges
and opportunities for groundwater development and a
different resilience to abstraction and climate change. The
seven typologies are: (1) the piedmont margin, (2) the Upper
Indus and Upper-Mid Ganges, (3) the Lower Ganges and Mid
Brahmaputra, (4) the fluvially influenced deltaic area of the
Bengal Basin, (5) the Middle Indus and Upper Ganges, (6) the
Lower Indus, and (7) the marine-influenced deltaic areas.
