Wavelet relationship between climate variability and deep groundwater fluctuation in Thailand's Central Plains

摘要

Groundwater is constantly under direct and indirect pressures from the anthropogenic effects, long-term climate change, and climate variability. This research investigates the association, in the time-frequency domain, between the groundwater fluctuations in Thailand's Lower Chao Phraya Basin and specific climate variability forces: the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), and the Asian Summer Monsoons (ASM). The analysis was carried out using the wavelet method and the findings presented in the form of the complete, global, and local wavelet spectrums. In addition, the Pearson correlation was utilized to establish the linkages between the groundwater and the climate variability forces. The results indicated that the deep groundwater signals of the Lower Chao Phraya Basin were linked to the ENSO, IOD and ASM with the absolute correlation coefficients in excess of 0.5. Moreover, the recent climatic indices exerted greater influence on the groundwater than in the past, given the former's correlation coefficients of 0.9 on average. By comparison, the deep groundwater was strongly associated with the recent ENSO and ASM but weakly linked to the IOD, with the absolute coefficients of around 0.5. The findings revealed the resilience of the deep groundwater under such high frequency signal conditions as the seasonal and tidal oscillations. Moreover, the results showed that the groundwater could be an alternative source of water supply during periods of droughts in the region.