CO2 Emissions Associated with Groundwater Storage Depletion in South Korea: Estimation and Vulnerability Assessment Using Satellite Data and Data-Driven Models

Abstract

Groundwater is crucial in mediating the interactions between the carbon and water cycles. Recently, groundwater storage depletion has been identified as a significant source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Here, we developed two data-driven models—XGBoost and convolutional neural network–long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM)—based on multi-satellite and reanalysis data to monitor CO2 emissions resulting from groundwater storage depletion in South Korea. The data-driven models developed in this study provided reasonably accurate predictions compared with in situ groundwater storage anomaly (GWSA) observations, identifying relatively high groundwater storage depletion levels in several regions over the past decade. For each administrative region exhibiting a decreasing groundwater storage trend, the corresponding CO2 emissions were quantified based on the predicted GWSA and respective bicarbonate concentrations. For 2008–2019, XGBoost and CNN-LSTM estimated CO2 emissions to be 0.216 and 0.202 MMTCO2/year, respectively. Furthermore, groundwater storage depletion vulnerability was assessed using the entropy weight method and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to identify hotspots with a heightened potential risk of CO2 emissions. Western South Korean regions were particularly classified as high or very high regions and susceptible to groundwater storage depletion-associated CO2 emissions. This study provides a foundation for developing countermeasures to mitigate accelerating groundwater storage depletion and the consequent rise in CO2 emissions.