Spatiotemporal variations and persistence of water storage in the Shendong mining area accounting for mining-induced mass changees

Groundwater and terrestrial water storage in mining-affected regions are subject to complex variations, making it essential to accurately characterize their dynamics for sustainable water resource management. This study integrates high-resolution observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its successor, the GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO), the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), and coal-production data to analyze the spatiotemporal variations of terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA), soil moisture anomalies (SMA), and groundwater storage anomalies (GWSA) in the relatively small-scale Shendong mining area of the Yellow River Basin, China, during 2002–2024, and quantitatively evaluates their stability and persistence using the coefficient of variation and the Hurst index. Results indicate a persistent decline in TWSA and GWSA across the study area, with strong temporal consistency and spatial continuity, with GWSA depletion identified as the primary contributor to long-term water storage loss, while SMA remains relatively stable with weaker variability. Accounting for mining-induced mass changes and examining stability and persistence at a localized scale, the results further reveal that GWSA exhibits low stability but strong persistence, indicating a sustained downward trajectory of groundwater storage. These findings provide new insights into the co-evolution of water storage components in mining-affected regions and emphasize the need to consider human-induced effects when interpreting GRACE-based water storage changes.