Large amount of groundwater discharging from tunnel is likely to cause destruction of the ecological environment in the vicinity of the tunnel, thus an appropriate drainage criterion should be established to balance the tunnel construction and groundwater.To assess the related problems, an limiting drainage standard ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 m3/(m·d) was suggested for mountain tunnels based on survey and comparative analysis. After that, for the purpose of verifying the rationality of the standard, a calculated formula for dewatering funnel volume caused by drainage was deduced on the basis of the groundwater dynamics and experience method.Furthermore, the equation about the relationship between water discharge and drawdown of groundwater table was presented. The permeability coefficient, specific yield and groundwater table value were introduced, and then combined with the above equation, the drawdown of groundwater table under the proposed limiting drainage criterion was calculated. It is shown that the proposed drainage standard can reach the purpose of protecting ecological environment under the following two conditions. One is the permeability coefficient ranges from 10-4 to 10-5 m/s and the specific yield ranges from 0.1 to 0.001. The other is the permeability coefficient varies from 10-6 to 10-8 m/s and the specific yield varies from 0.1 to 0.01. In addition, a majority of common geotechnical layers are involved in the above ranges. Thus, the proposed limiting drainage standard which ranges from 0.5 to 2.0 m3/(m·d) for mountain tunnel is reasonable.
