Enhancing Informed Decisions for Coastal Groundwater Sustainability: A Network Analysis of Water-Related Indicator Results from 122 Cities

Abstract

In many places around the globe, groundwater has been threatened by various pressures, which calls for better management strategies for groundwater sustainability. In this study, we suggest a novel framework for identifying factors critical to coastal groundwater based on results from City Blueprint (CB) assessments. By compiling the 5856 indicator results of the City Blueprint Approach (CBA) from 122 cities and analyzing the correlation between these indicators, we constructed City Blueprint networks (CBN) by using a complex network modeling approach for three groups of cities: all 122 cities, 40 coastal, and 82 non-coastal cities. These networks were then analyzed for their node centralities to identify major factors that influence coastal groundwater management. Interestingly, our analysis revealed that groundwater has various indirect but important links with the factors that are typically unexplored in the literature. We also assessed the CB of the two largest coastal cities in South Korea. By combining the results of network analysis and CB assessment of the two cities, we could identify the indicators that are potentially at risk regarding coastal groundwater. We propose the CBN as a novel approach to unveil underestimated or hidden factors related to the target system (e.g., groundwater), which allows extensive options for sustainable groundwater management.