Governance and policy responses to anthropogenic and climate pressures on groundwater resources in the Greater Mekong Subregion urbanizing cities

Groundwater has become a major source of freshwater for supporting socio-economic development in the rapidly urbanizing cities of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Paradoxically, mindless groundwater withdrawals have led to enormous pressures on vital resources: socio-economic development, urbanization, climate situation as well as groundwater governance. Through a case study in Khon Kaen, Thailand - a rapidly urbanizing city in GMS - this study aimed to examine (i) the trends of socio-economic development and climate pressures on groundwater resources, (ii) how groundwater policies responded to extraction, use, and management of groundwater over the last two decades. Time-series data of groundwater extraction, groundwater level, climate, and socio-economic situation (2000–2019) were tested by Mann Kendal trend test and Sen's slope estimation to investigate the direction of the trends and their changes. We use Pearson correlation to assess the association between socio-economic development and groundwater withdrawals. Institutional and retrospective policy analyses were applied to analyze the institutional arrangements and the policy changes over time. The findings show the rapid socio-economic development and climate trends accelerate the groundwater extraction as well as groundwater depletion in Khon Kaen. The Royal Thai Government has implemented some measures to control groundwater extraction through groundwater decentralization processes to local governments. However, groundwater extraction was only reduced in the short term. The findings reflect a lack of effective policies and low institutional capacity as the key challenges of groundwater management in the study area. Consequently, the way forward requires the consideration of collaborative strategies among key actors to strengthen groundwater governance in the rapidly urbanizing area to balance groundwater use, socio-economic development, and climate resilience. Further, the capacity of groundwater governance should be enhanced at the local level beyond transboundary aquifer management to ensure sustainable groundwater extraction in the GMS region to respond to the sustainable development goals.