| Abstract | Groundwater has emerged as an essential freshwater resource for socioeconomic development in rapidly urbanizing cities in the Lower Mekong Region (LMR). Conversely, excessive groundwater extraction has put significant strains on socioeconomic growth, urbanization, climate uncertainties, groundwater governance, and human behavior. Through a case study in Khon Kaen, Thailand - a rapidly urbanizing city in LMR. The study sought (i) to analyze how socioeconomic and climatic forces have influenced groundwater extraction over the last two decades and how policy have responded over time (ii) to evaluate the present groundwater governance system and the elements that influence its effectiveness, efficiency, trust and engagement (iii) to investigate how groundwater saving behavior is shaped. Through the research methods (i) to explore the direction of the trends and their variations, groundwater extraction, groundwater level, climate, and socioeconomic condition time series data (2000-2019) were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen\'s slope estimation. To investigate the link between socioeconomic development and groundwater extractions, the Pearson correlation is used. To investigate institutional structures and policy changes through time, institutional and retrospective policy analyses were used. (ii) Questionnaires on groundwater governance and stakeholder capacity toward SDG 6 were sent to stakeholders (i.e. policymakers, practitioners, private sector, local community and users) to reveal the state of GWG performance in terms of water governance principles and stakeholder capacity. To study the indicators that might describe the water governance aspects, descriptive statistical analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) are applied. (iii) the questionnaires are distributed to 338 groundwater users to assess how groundwater users’ saving behavior is shaped. Descriptive statistical analysis, probit regression and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) were used. The findings show (i) groundwater extraction and depletion in Khon Kaen are accelerated by fast socioeconomic growth and climatic changes. The Royal Thai Government has made several initiatives to restrict groundwater use through groundwater decentralization processes for local governments. However, groundwater pumping was only temporarily curtailed. The findings highlight the fundamental issues of groundwater management as weak institutional capabilities and a lack of effective policies (ii) The findings show that integrity and transparency perform the lowest of the GWG principles, while data and information, as well as trade-offs across users, rural and urban locations, and generations, are the difficulties for policymakers and practitioners. Further, the performance of the indicators is discussed through the CFA model (iii) The findings show water users in the agricultural sector (β = -0.98, p = 0.01) are negative with self-perception of GW saving. Changing to the users in the agricultural sector, the self-perception of GW saving tends to decrease in z-score by 0.98 at a statistical significance level. Awareness of GW extraction impacts (β = 0.89, p = 0.002), GW adequate knowledge and information (β = 1.16, p = 0.015) and GW tariff (β = 0.78, p = 0.02) have strongly influenced GW saving behavior. The GW saving intentional behaviour has been influenced by subjective norms (β = 0.52, p <0.001) and perceived behavioural control (β = 0.21, p <0.001). Several policy implications are drawn from the research, including (i) to balance groundwater consumption, socioeconomic growth, and climate resilience, the way forward requires multiple actors to propose collaborative methods to promote groundwater management in the rapidly urbanizing area. (ii) the weakness of groundwater governance can be strengthened by proposing the local policy related to the integrity and transparency, data and information and trade-offs across users (iii) GW policy options should pay attention to GW tariff application, awareness raising about GW impacts, GW knowledge dissemination to control GW abstraction in the community and enhance GW water saving attitude and behavior in the community. Further, the role of groundwater saving behavior can improve groundwater governance by proposing the programs about the cooperation among GW users that strongly influenced by social pressures. Beyond transboundary aquifer management, groundwater governance capability should be developed at the local scale to enable sustainable groundwater use in the LMR to accomplish the SDGs. |
