Defining Renewable Groundwater Use and Its Relevance to Sustainable Groundwater Management
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Groundwater systems are commonly defined as renewable or non‐renewable based on natural fluxes of recharge or on estimates of aquifer storage and groundwater residence time. However, we show here that the principle of capture (i.e., how recharge and discharge change due to pumping) challenges simple definitions so that a groundwater system cannot be renewable or non‐renewable in and of itself, but only with reference to how the groundwater is being used. We develop and propose more hydraulically informed definitions for flux‐renewable and storage‐renewable groundwater use, and a combined definition that encompasses both the flux‐based and storage‐based perspectives such that: renewable groundwater use allows for dynamically stable re‐equilibrium of groundwater levels and quality on human timescales. Further, we show how a matrix of combinations of (a) the ratio of pumping rate to the maximum rate of capture along with (b) the response or recovery timescales implicit in this definition, leads to a useful four‐quadrant framework for characterizing groundwater use, illustrated using case studies from aquifers around the world. Renewable groundwater use may inform pathways to groundwater sustainability, which encompasses a broader set of dimensions (e.g., socio‐political, economic, ecological and cultural) beyond the scope of groundwater science. We propose that separating physically robust definitions of renewable groundwater use from the inherently value‐based language of sustainability, can help bring much needed clarity to wider discussions about sustainable groundwater management strategies, and the role of groundwater science and scientists in such endeavors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".