Assessing groundwater storage dynamics in east coast China under climatic influences: a 24-year watershed-scale evaluation (2000–2024)

Groundwater storage (GWS) is vital for sustaining agriculture, industry, and household water security, yet increasing climatic variability and human pressures have heightened aquifer vulnerability. This study examines the combined influence of total precipitation rate (TPR), land surface temperature (LST), and evapotranspiration (EVAPT) on GWS in the East Coast China watershed across four benchmark years—2000, 2010, 2020, and 2024. Exploratory regression analysis was applied, with models validated using Adjusted R², Akaike’s Information Criterion corrected (AICc), Jarque–Bera normality tests, Koenker heteroscedasticity statistics, Variance Inflation Factors (VIF), and Global Moran’s I. Results show that multivariate models consistently outperformed single-variable approaches, achieving higher explanatory power and lower AICc values. Diagnostics confirmed model validity, with residuals normally distributed, error variance constant, predictors independent, and residuals spatially random. Precipitation remained the primary recharge driver, but its effects were increasingly moderated by rising temperatures and intensified evapotranspiration, especially in agricultural sub-basins.