Removing barometric pressure effects from groundwater level and identifying main influential constituents

Changes in barometric pressure can affect the micro-dynamic state of groundwater level.The groundwater level data carry a lot of important information of tectonic activity and earthquakes.It is very significant to eliminate the barometric pressure effects from the groundwater level data in order to recognize seismic anomalies effectively.With the analysis of the main influential constituents of barometric pressure and their changes,we can have a better understanding of the changes of the aquifer medium,which can provide useful information for earthquake prediction.Taking the May 12,2008 Wenchuan earthquake as an example,this paper deals with the influence of barometric pressure on groundwater level based on observational data from Nanxi,Qionglai and Chaohu wells.The methods of the linear regression and the deconvolution regression were employed to remove the barometric pressure from the groundwater level data.The harmonic analysis and the spectral analysis were used to recognize the main influential waves of barometric pressure effect.A comparison was conducted on the main influential waves before and after the earthquake.The results showed that the main influential waves of barometric pressure effect changed and the amplitudes of all constituents also changed.This phenomenon may result from the characteristics of the influential constituents of pressure,or from the changes of the aquifer medium,which were caused by the earthquake.