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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/FWSH/08
Time series modeling approach for temporal variability of groundwater level

Hafiz Umar Farid*, Saddam Hussain, Zahid Mahmood Khan, Aamir Shakoor, Huzaifa
Shahzad
1 Department of Agricultural Engineering, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 60800,
Pakistan
Correspondence: hufarid@bzu.edu.pk

Abstract
In arid and semi-arid regions, groundwater is often the primary source of water. However, over
pumping for irrigation purposes has resulted in a general decline in groundwater levels/depth
in the semi-arid aquifer. The spatiotemporal analysis of groundwater level for pre-monsoon
season and post monsoon season were carried out of 203 sites for Haveli canal Circle of the
Multan Irrigation zone, Punjab, Pakistan for the period 2005-2018 using the Mann-Kendall and
Sen’s slope estimator tests. The data distribution was tested for normality using the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
software package. The results of the normality test showed that the data was not normally
distributed (p = 0.01) as statistics for pre-monsoon and post-monsoon groundwater level were
observed 0.195 and 0.159, respectively. The results also indicated that 33.1% sites showed a
significant increasing trend in groundwater depth during pre-monsoon season while during
post-monsoon season, 31.6% of sites show a significant increasing trend in groundwater depth.
The spatial analysis showed that the major part of the study area showed an increasing trend in
groundwater depth during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon season. It was observed that the
southeast part of the study area showed a significant increasing trend in groundwater depth
during the pre-monsoon season and the post-monsoon season for the entire study period (2005-
2018). For site specific zoning, the cluster analysis showed that two zones in the south-east
part were showing a significant increasing trend in groundwater depth during pre-monsoon
season and post-monsoon season. The pattern suggests that depth of groundwater in the south-
east region is harming due to excessive groundwater abstraction in the region. So, conservation
steps need to be enforced immediately to limit further depletion of groundwater depth.
Keywords: Groundwater depth; Time series data; Mann-Kendall test; Sen’s Slope estimator
test; Hierarchical cluster analysis; Spatio-temporal analysis

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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