Liu C, Hu Y, Liu J et al (2014) Advances in the use of temperature data to study interactions between surface water and groundwater. Hydrogeol Eng Geol 41(5):5–10 Although the Water Act has explicitly mentioned the issue of «integration» in several of its articles, the legal system is far from complete and does not take into account important issues such as the need for integrated management and control of water quantity and quality. Article 32 states that county-level or above-county water management departments or watershed management organizations should assess the pollutant carrying capacity of a given watershed and then submit proposals for the overall discharge of pollution to the Department of Environmental Protection Administration. Water management departments at the county level or above the county level or watershed management organizations take on the task of monitoring water quality and are accountable to the Department of Environmental Protection. This segmentation in the management of water quantity and quality will inevitably hinder the achievement of integrated groundwater management. Although watershed management organizations have been established and their legal status defined in the amended Water Act, the current situation is such that the management authority of watershed management organizations is very limited. Currently, the main tasks of watershed management organisations are focused on the construction and management of flood protection systems for rivers and the development of some ad hoc projects at the catchment area level, but they do not play a significant role in the development and management of water resources, in particular groundwater resources, at the catchment area level. Over the past 60 years, China has made great strides in integrated groundwater management. However, much remains to be done to further integration. First, the legislative system should be improved.

China still has no groundwater-specific laws and regulations, only a few general provisions (the Water Law and the WPPC Act) governing groundwater management. The overlap of the WPPC Act and the Water Act leads to confusion of the institutional responsibilities of the MWR and MEP, as well as their local counterparts. In addition, the groundwater regulatory system is far from complete and does not take into account important issues such as the need for integrated management and control of water quantity and quality. The formulation of «specific regulations on groundwater management» and technical standards for groundwater development should be accelerated in order to improve groundwater management and protection in accordance with legislation. The vague wording of the Act and the general provisions of existing Acts and Regulations also hamper the implementation process and need to be clarified and more precise. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was passed by Senator Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and Representative Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento. It requires land use plans to consider groundwater sustainability plans and assess the impacts of land use on groundwater. The National Water Resources Control Board has the power to intervene and manage groundwater «only if local communities have failed to comply with the requirements» of the law.

With rapid economic development and population growth over the past three decades, groundwater use in China has increased significantly. Since the 1970s, groundwater use has increased at an average rate of 2.5 billion m3 per year. The total amount of groundwater use was 57 billion m3/year in the 1970s, 75 billion m3/year in the 1980s, and reached 111 billion m3 in 2011, accounting for more than 18% of total water supply (Ministry of Water Resources 2011) (Fig. 18.3). Agricultural water use accounts for the highest percentage of total groundwater use, although it increased from 88% in the 1980s to 62% in the late 1990s. Industrial and municipal water consumption increased from 12% in the 1980s to 38% in the late 1990s, and this trend is expected to keep pace with accelerating industrialization and urbanization. Exploration and use of groundwater in areas where water is scarce and endemic has also been carried out. In the arid north-west region and the so-called red soil region in the south-west, as well as in areas where diseases are endemic, CGS has carried out hydrogeological studies and demonstration projects on groundwater supply and has solved the problem of providing safe drinking water to more than 20 million people. Although concerns about environmental problems related to groundwater began in the 1960s, most of the work that has been done is scientific research in nature and has not been explicitly reflected in laws or regulations. In 2011, the State Council adopted the National Plan for the Prevention and Control of Groundwater Pollution (2011-2020), which has become an important official guideline for groundwater quality management. In 2012, the National Plan for the Prevention and Control of Land Subsidence (2011-2020) was published by the Ministry of Lands and Resources and the Ministry of Water Resources, which contains the official guidelines for subsidence management. In this plan, it is necessary to strictly limit groundwater overflow by controlling the total amount of groundwater pumping and groundwater levels.

A water resource assessment system is needed when construction projects such as urban construction and mining need to pump groundwater. The areas in which groundwater pumping is to be restricted or prohibited must be demarcated. Depending on the requirement to control the subsidence of a given area, the objective of controlling and reducing the groundwater pump should be determined. At the same time, the construction of alternative water sources should be accelerated to meet domestic and industrial water use needs. With the increase in the rate of groundwater withdrawal, most aquifers in northern China have been covered, including all of Hebei province, aquifers in mega or medium-sized cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Haerbin, Jinan, Taiyuan and Zhengzhou are all overpumped.