Information Entropy Evolution for Groundwater Flow System: A Case Study of Artificial Recharge in Shijiazhuang City, China

The groundwater flow system is typical dissipative structure system, and its evolution can be described with system information entropies. The information entropies of groundwater in Shijiazhuang City had been calculated between 1960 and 2005, and the results show that the entropies have a decreasing trend throughout the research period, and they can be divided into our stages based on the groundwater flow system entropy variation as follows: entropy steady period (1960–1965), entropy decreasing period (1965–1980), entropy increasing period (1980–1995) and secondary entropy decreasing period (1995–2005); understanding the major and significant driving the pattern changing forces of groundwater levels is essential to groundwater management,. A new method of grey correlation analysis has been presented, and the results show that, the grey correlation grade between groundwater flow system information entropies and precipitation series is γ01 = 0.749, the grey correlation grade between groundwater flow system information entropies and groundwater withdrawal series is γ02 = 0.814, as the groundwater withdrawal is the main driving force of groundwater flow system entropy variation; based on the numerical simulation results, information entropy increased with artificial recharge, and a smaller recharge water volume would enhance the information entropy drastically, but then doubled water would not increase the information correspondingly, which could be useful to assess the health state of groundwater flow systems. OPEN ACCESS Entropy 2014, 16 4409