Sustainable Water Management Solutions for Large Cities (Proceedings of symposium S2 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 293, 2005. 280 Effects of urbanization on water resource development and its problems in Shijiazhuang, China YANJUN SHEN 1,2 , CHANGYUAN TANG 3 , JIEYING XIAO 4 , TAIKAN OKI 2 & SHINJIRO KANAE 2,5 1 Center for Agricultural Resources Research, IGDB, CAS, Huaizhong Rd. 286, Shijiazhuang, 050021, China 2 Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, Komaba 4-6-1, Meguro, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan sheny@rainbow.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp 3 Faculty of Horticulture, Chiba University, Matsudo 648, Matsudo-shi, Chiba 271-8510, Japan 4 Graduate School of Science and Technology, Chiba University, Yayoi 1-33, Inage, Chiba 263- 8522, Japan 5Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, 335 Takashima-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto 602-0878, Japan Abstract Anthropogenic activities are of a major force in changing the hydrological cycle as well as the climate. Assessing the impacts of human activities on hydrological environments is becoming a wide-focused topic. In this research, the authors attempt to link the urbanization, agricultural development, and the subsequent water resources exploitation with the change of water environments in Shijiazhuang region, China, and evaluate the impacts of human activities on the regional hydrological cycle and water quality. The development of the urban expansion of Shijiazhuang is divided into four periods. According to the historical records, the depth of the water table was shallow. Over the greater part of the area it did not exceed 1–3 m depth before the 1950s. After the 1970s, the increase of groundwater pumping began to result in the fall of the groundwater level at a rate of 1 to 1.5 m year -1 . As a result, the hydrological system has changed greatly since then. In order to explore the recharge and discharge mechanism, groundwater sampling in different seasons was conducted across the major part of the study area. It is shown that the groundwater accepted lateral recharge along the rivers besides the lateral recharge from the mountain range. However, the spatial distribution of tritium along the Hutuo River suggests that groundwater has seldom accepted vertical recharge since the river dried-up. Key words recharge and discharge of groundwater; regional hydrological cycle; Shijiazhuang, China; urbanization; water resources exploitation INTRODUCTION Accelerated groundwater exploitation over the past few decades has resulted in great social and economic benefits by providing low-cost, drought-reliable and high quality water supplies for urban areas, rural populations and crop irrigation. The rapidly increasing large cities in semiarid and semi-humid regions raise many problems in water resources management. Adequate water supply and drainage management are urgent tasks, and new solutions are needed to overcome the problems of water scarcity, deteriorating water quality, lack of sufficient supply systems, inappropriate handling of