China faces immense challenges in meeting its growing water needs. The country’s demand for fresh water places strain on its finite resources, making the origin of this water a subject of national importance. While surface water from rivers and lakes provides the majority of supply, a substantial volume is sourced from groundwater. Groundwater is stored naturally beneath the Earth’s surface in underground geological formations called aquifers. Analyzing the reliance on this resource is important for assessing the long-term sustainability of the nation’s water supply strategy.
Groundwater’s Share of Total Water Withdrawal
Groundwater is a major component of China’s total water withdrawal, though it is not the dominant source nationally. The total annual groundwater extraction volume is typically between 107 and 113 billion cubic meters. Compared to the total annual water withdrawal (580 to 618 billion cubic meters), groundwater accounts for approximately 18 to 20 percent of the national total. This means roughly one cubic meter out of every five drawn for human use comes from underground aquifers. The remaining 80 percent is primarily supplied by surface water sources like the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and various lakes and reservoirs.
National Water Use Profile: Sectoral Demand
National water reliance is heavily skewed toward agricultural production, which consumes the largest share of the total water withdrawal. The agricultural sector, primarily for irrigation, accounts for about 63 percent of all water withdrawn. Industrial use, including manufacturing and energy production, is the second-largest consumer, utilizing approximately 23 percent of the total supply. Domestic and municipal uses, covering drinking, sanitation, and urban green spaces, account for the remaining 12 to 14 percent.
The importance of groundwater varies dramatically across these sectors compared to the national average. While agriculture is the largest overall water user, its share of unsustainable groundwater depletion is proportionally smaller at around 52 percent nationally. Conversely, the industrial sector, which uses 23 percent of the total water supply, is attributed with a higher share of groundwater depletion at 33 percent. This indicates that groundwater is a significant source for certain industries and a substantial portion of the water used by urban populations.
Regional Variations in Groundwater Reliance
The national average percentage of groundwater use masks profound geographical differences across the country. The North China Plain, including major cities like Beijing and Tianjin, is an arid to semi-arid region with significantly less surface water than the South. In this region, groundwater is a foundation of the water supply, often providing over half of the total water withdrawn in these provinces. Reliance is estimated to be as high as 70 percent of all local water resources in some parts of the North China Plain.
This dependence is driven by the region’s climate and intense agricultural output. The North China Plain is a major grain-producing area, and water scarcity requires high volumes of irrigation, often for the double-cropping of winter wheat. Groundwater supplies approximately 70 percent of the irrigation water and 60 percent of the drinking water requirements here. By contrast, the water-rich South, with higher precipitation and abundant rivers, relies predominantly on surface water. Consequently, less than 7 percent of the irrigated land in the southern provinces depends on groundwater.
The intense extraction in the North is often non-renewable, as water is removed from deep aquifers much faster than natural recharge can replenish it. The aquifers beneath the North China Plain have become some of the most depleted in the world due to decades of over-extraction. This disparity highlights a fundamental imbalance where the country’s most stressed region depends heavily on the most vulnerable water source.
Environmental Impact of Over-Extraction
The heavy reliance on groundwater, particularly in the northern regions, has created serious long-term environmental consequences. The most visible impact is land subsidence, the sinking of the ground surface, which is widespread in the North China Plain and affects numerous major cities. This phenomenon occurs when water is pumped from the ground, causing underlying soil and clay layers to compress permanently. In the Tianjin region, the sinking rate has been recorded at over 10 millimeters per year in some areas.
Beyond the physical sinking of land, continuous over-extraction leads to aquifer depletion. Estimates suggest that China is losing around 60 billion cubic meters of groundwater annually due to unsustainable withdrawal rates. This depletion has also led to significant water quality degradation, especially in coastal areas where lowered water tables allow for seawater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion increases the salinity of the remaining freshwater, making it unusable for drinking and irrigation.
The intensive agricultural practices that drive much of the northern groundwater use also contribute to nitrate contamination in the aquifers. This combination of non-renewable water loss, structural damage to the land, and chemical contamination threatens the long-term stability of the water supply for millions of people.