Grantham Scholar Weijiang Yu’s work looks to solve the groundwater management problem in the coastal areas considering climate change.
Coastal strips are economically developed and have high population density areas in many countries, such as New York, London, Shanghai and Tokyo. In these places, water demand is numerous and the conflict of water demand-supply is mostly alleviated by pumping groundwater.
However, making a sustainable local groundwater management scheme is complex and systematic work. Especially considering sea-level rise incurred by climate change and potentially exacerbated by seawater intrusion problem from groundwater over-exploitation.
As a result, it is necessary to make an optimal groundwater management plan, balancing the trade-off between the economical and environmental benefits. The framework of groundwater simulation coupling with optimization is a useful tool to explore the optimal scheme, but it is too computationally expensive.
My research work is to find a cheaper route and develop a general guide for solving the groundwater management problem in the coastal areas considering climate change.
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