Carbon Emission Based Predictions of Anthropogenic Impacts on Groundwater Storage at Typical Basins in 2050

Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic activities on groundwater is crucial for its management and utilization. However, predicting anthropogenic impacts on groundwater remains challenging due to their complexity. As any anthropogenic activity generates carbon emissions, we employed carbon emissions to characterize the intensity of anthropogenic activities to predict groundwater storage variations. Carbon emission-groundwater machine learning models indicate that groundwater storage will increase in Rhine Valley (7.3% ± 1.9%), the Great Lakes Basin (6.7% ± 4.3%), and Pearl River catchments (1.8% ± 1.5%) in the next 3 decades, but it will continue to decline in Yangtze River catchments (-13.7% ± 3.4%), with <i>R</i> ² ranging from 0.916 to 0.995. Furthermore, the existing groundwater protection measures of Yangtze River catchments will not be sufficient to compensate for future declines in groundwater storage caused by anthropogenic activities (5.9% ± 4% decrease in 2050), indicating the necessity of more effective measures. This study developed a method to predict the impacts of anthropogenic activities on groundwater, thus overcoming an important obstacle in predicting groundwater behavior, which is crucial for the utilization and management of groundwater resources. The methodology developed in this study for predicting the impacts of anthropogenic activities on groundwater will raise awareness of the link between anthropogenic activities and groundwater and lead to in-depth research on anthropogenically driven groundwater prediction studies. This will overcome substantial barriers to predicting groundwater behavior, which is critical for groundwater resource use and management.