• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.95-105
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• 2021

Extensive groundwater abstraction has been recognized as one of the major challenges in management of coastal groundwater. The purpose of this study was to assess potential changes of groundwater distribution of northeastern Jeju Island over 10-year duration, where brackish water have been actively developed. To quantitatively estimate the coastal groundwater resources, numerical simulations using three-dimensional finite-difference density-dependent flow models were performed to describe spatial distribution of the groundwater in the aquifer under various pumping and recharge scenarios. The simulation results showed different spatial distribution of freshwater, brackish, and saline groundwater at varying seawater concentration from 10 to 90%. Volumetric analysis was also performed using three-dimensional concentration distribution of groundwater to calculate the volume of fresh, brackish, and saline groundwater below sea level. Based on the volumetric analysis, a quantitative analysis of future seawater intrusion vulnerability was performed using the volume-based vulnerability index adopted from the existing analytical approaches. The result showed that decrease in recharge can exacerbate vulnerability of coastal groundwater resources by inducing broader saline area as well as increasing brackish water volume of unconfined aquifers.