Groundwater residence time and aquifer recharge in mutilayered, semi-confined and faulted aquifer systems using environmental tracers
Abstract
Population growth and ongoing climate change threatens the future of water supply in many regions. Therefore water resources need to be managed in a way such that water demands for industrial, agricultural, recreation and household uses are met in a sustainable approach. To do so, appropriate knowledge of groundwater residence time and aquifer recharge is paramount. But populations are largely concentrated on sedimentary basins where aquifers are often multi-layered, semi-confined and faulted, challenging the study of groundwater flow processes. The motivation of this work is to study the potential of environmental tracers (δ18O, δ2H, δ13C, 14C, 4He, 20Ne, 40Ar, N2) to assist our understanding of recharge processes and residence times in semi-confined, multilayered and faulted aquifer systems. For that purpose, the coastal aquifer system in the Adelaide Plains basin, South Australia, was studied. Carbon-14 groundwater ages were found to increase with depth and distance (<1000 years near the recharge area to >30,000 years near the coast), confirming the system is semi-confined and the palaeometeoric origin of groundwater, as suggested by water stable isotopes. The presence of old groundwater near the top of deep semi-confined aquifers suggested that recharge mainly occurs in the mountain ranges east of the basin, a finding which was supported by higher Cl concentrations in the overlying Quaternary aquifers. Mean groundwater flow velocity of 0.8 m y-1 was estimated using 14C ages, and confirmed with 4He estimations. However 4He accumulation rates ranging between 8×10-12 and 1×10-10 cm3 STP g-1 y-1 and 1.7-7.1×10-7 cm3 STP g-1 km-1 confirmed slower flow velocities in some areas, velocities that could not be captured using 14C. Faults were found to play a paramount role in mixing old fluids rich in salts and 4He, but it was not possible to demonstrate the role of faults in changing flow velocities, which requires a higher density of sampling points. Our study shows that environmental tracers are a prospect tool to facilitate the study of flow processes in semi-confined, faulted and multilayered aquifer systems, provided a high density of sampling points is available.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.H14D..06B
- Keywords:
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- 1804 Catchment;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1830 Groundwater/surface water interaction;
- HYDROLOGY