Resilience-Based Anomaly Detection and Risk Assessment for Groundwater Systems During Tunnel Excavation

Abstract

Tunnel construction disturbs groundwater systems, threatening water resource sustainability and ecological stability, while insufficient drainage can pose serious safety risks. Balancing safety with groundwater protection is therefore a critical challenge. Using the Huafu and Huayan tunnels as case studies, this research integrates field observations with MODFLOW simulations to develop a resilience indicator system. The system incorporates stability, recovery capacity, and critical thresholds to quantify groundwater responses to construction disturbances. A mechanism for detecting groundwater anomalies during tunneling is also proposed. Results show that extreme disturbances cause sharp declines in system performance, but subsequent recovery and resilience gains reflect self-organizing and self-healing properties of groundwater systems. This study demonstrates a resilience-based framework for evaluating tunnel impacts on groundwater. The findings provide early warning insights for water-related hazards and guidance for groundwater protection and restoration in tunnel engineering.