scholarly journals Palaeohydrogeology and Transport Parameters Derived from 4He and Cl Profiles in Aquitard Pore Waters in a Large Multilayer Aquifer System, Central Australia

Geofluids ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey C. Priestley ◽  
Tavis Kleinig ◽  
Andrew J. Love ◽  
Vincent E. A. Post ◽  
Paul Shand ◽  
...  

A study of chloride and 4He profiles through an aquitard that separates the Great Artesian Basin from the underlying Arckaringa Basin in central Australia is presented. The aquitard separates two aquifers with long water residence times, due to low recharge rates in the arid climate. One-dimensional solute transport models were used to determine the advective flux of groundwater across the aquitard as well as establish any major changes in past hydrological conditions recorded by variations of the pore water composition. This in situ study showed that both diffusion and slow downward advection (vz=0.7 mm/yr) control solute transport. Numerical simulations show that an increase in chloride concentration in the upper part of the profile is due to a reduction in recharge in the upper aquifer for at least 3000 years. Groundwater extraction since 2008 has likely increased chloride and 4He concentrations in the lower aquifer by pulling up water from deeper layers; however, there has been insufficient time for upward solute transport into the pore water profile by diffusion against downward advection. The transport model of 4He and chloride provides insight into how the two aquifers interact through the aquitard and how climate change is being recorded in the aquitard profile.

Geofluids ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Stacey C. Priestley ◽  
Tavis Kleinig ◽  
Andrew J. Love ◽  
Vincent E. A. Post ◽  
Paul Shand ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 2617-2635 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sprenger ◽  
T. H. M. Volkmann ◽  
T. Blume ◽  
M. Weiler

Abstract. Determining the soil hydraulic properties is a prerequisite to physically model transient water flow and solute transport in the vadose zone. Estimating these properties by inverse modelling techniques has become more common within the last 2 decades. While these inverse approaches usually fit simulations to hydrometric data, we expanded the methodology by using independent information about the stable isotope composition of the soil pore water depth profile as a single or additional optimization target. To demonstrate the potential and limits of this approach, we compared the results of three inverse modelling strategies where the fitting targets were (a) pore water isotope concentrations, (b) a combination of pore water isotope concentrations and soil moisture time series, and (c) a two-step approach using first soil moisture data to determine water flow parameters and then the pore water stable isotope concentrations to estimate the solute transport parameters. The analyses were conducted at three study sites with different soil properties and vegetation. The transient unsaturated water flow was simulated by solving the Richards equation numerically with the finite-element code of HYDRUS-1D. The transport of deuterium was simulated with the advection-dispersion equation, and a modified version of HYDRUS was used, allowing deuterium loss during evaporation. The Mualem–van Genuchten and the longitudinal dispersivity parameters were determined for two major soil horizons at each site. The results show that approach (a), using only the pore water isotope content, cannot substitute hydrometric information to derive parameter sets that reflect the observed soil moisture dynamics but gives comparable results when the parameter space is constrained by pedotransfer functions. Approaches (b) and (c), using both the isotope profiles and the soil moisture time series, resulted in good simulation results with regard to the Kling–Gupta efficiency and good parameter identifiability. However, approach (b) has the advantage that it considers the isotope data not only for the solute transport parameters but also for water flow and root water uptake, and thus increases parameter realism. Approaches (b) and (c) both outcompeted simulations run with parameters derived from pedotransfer functions, which did not result in an acceptable representation of the soil moisture dynamics and pore water stable isotope composition. Overall, parameters based on this new approach that includes isotope data lead to similar model performances regarding the water balance and soil moisture dynamics and better parameter identifiability than the conventional inverse model approaches limited to hydrometric fitting targets. If only data from isotope profiles in combination with textural information is available, the results are still satisfactory. This method has the additional advantage that it will not only allow us to estimate water balance and response times but also site-specific time variant transit times or solute breakthrough within the soil profile.


1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Jacques ◽  
J. Vanderborght ◽  
D. Mallants ◽  
D.-J. Kim ◽  
H. Vereecken ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this paper the relation between local- and field-scale solute transport parameters in an unsaturated soil profile is investigated. At two experimental sites, local-scale steady-state solute transport was measured in-situ using 120 horizontally installed TDR probes at 5 depths. Local-scale solute transport parameters determined from BTCs were used to predict field-scale solute transport using stochastic stream tube models (STM). Local-scale solute transport was described by two transport models: (1) the convection-dispersion transport model (CDE), and (2) the stochastic convective lognormat transfer model (CLT). The parameters of the CDE-model were found to be lognormally distributed, whereas the parameters of the CLT model were normally distributed. Local-scale solute transport heterogeneity within the measurement volume of a TDR-probe was an important factor causing field-scale solute dispersion. The study of the horizontal scale-dependency revealed that the variability in the solute transport parameters contributes more to the field-scale dispersion at deeper depths than at depths near the surface. Three STMs were used to upscale the local transport parameters: (i) the stochastic piston flow STM-I assuming local piston flow transport, (ii) the convective-dispersive STM-II assuming local CDE transport, and (iii) the stochastic convective lognormal STM-III assuming local CLT. The STM-I considerably underpredicted the field-scale solute dispersion indicating that local-scale dispersion processes, which are captured within the measurement volume of the TDR-probe, are important to predict field-scale solute transport. STM-II and STM-III both described the field-scale breakthrough curves (BTC) accurately if depth dependent parameters were used. In addition, a reasonable description of the horizontal variance of the local BTCs was found. STM-III was (more) superior to STM-II if only one set of parameters from one depth is used to predict the field-scale solute BTCs at several depths. This indicates that the local-scale solute transport process, as measured with TDR in this study, is in agreement with the CLT-hypothesis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-120
Author(s):  
Habiba Majour ◽  
Azzedine Hani ◽  
Larbi Djabri

Abstract The potentiometer area in the Annaba basin, covering an area of 264 km2, has declined considerably since 1995. The analysis of the chronological hydrographs (1991–2009) of the piezometric observations shows that this decline is related to about twenty years (20 years) drought that began in 1991. To synthesize hydrological data and study regional changes in aquifer interactions caused by changes in discharge, and determine the contamination of aquifers by salty intrusion in coastal areas, and making forecasts by the year 2023, a multi-layered transient model as well as a solute transport model has been developed. The groundwater flow was modelled using the finite difference method with a horizontal dimension of 500 × 500 m for the cells. The model consists of two layers, the first corresponding to the alluvial phreatic aquifer and the second to the deep confined aquifer, and is calibrated against the steady state groundwater heads recorded before 1996. Model verification was done by history matching over the period 1991–2009. Under steady-state conditions, the correspondence between simulated and observed water levels is generally good (average difference of 0.4 m). For the deep aquifer, the simulated time-series hydrographs closely match the recorded hydrographs for most of the observation wells. For the alluvial aquifer, the recorded hydrographs cover only a short time period, but they are reproduced. The model indicates that groundwater pumping induced a decrease in natural discharge, a downward leakage in most of the basin and a continual water-level decline. The model has also been applied to the analysis of recharge impact. Simulating the behaviour of the system over the period 1991–2009 without pumping indicated small changes in hydraulic head. These results show that the groundwater reservoir has a low recharge, but excellent hydraulic properties. A solute-transport model was used to study aquifer contamination from salty intrusion in coastal sectors; it was extended to the year 2023 by simulating an optimistic hypothesis that maintains present pumping until 2023. The model indicates that the head decrease of the alluvial phreatic and deep confined aquifers will be 4 m and 5 m respectively. The solute concentration in the deep confined aquifer will increase from 1 gꞏdm−3 (prior 2009) to 5 gꞏdm−3 in 2023.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Y. Chou ◽  
G. Wyseure

Abstract. Groundwater and river-water have a different composition and interact in and below the riverbed. The riverbed-aquifer flux interactions have received growing interest because of their role in the exchange and transformation of nutrients and pollutants between rivers and the aquifer. In this research our main purpose is to identify the physical processes and characteristics needed for a numerical transport model, which includes the unsaturated recharge zone, the aquifer and the riverbed. In order to investigate such lateral groundwater inflow process, a laboratory J-shaped column experiment was designed. This study determined the transport parameters of the J-shaped column by fitting an analytical solution of the convective-dispersion equation for every flux on individual segments to the observed breakthrough curves of the resident concentration, and by inverse modelling for every flux simultaneously over the entire flow domain. The obtained transport-parameter relation was tested by numerical simulation using HYDRUS 2-D/3-D. Four steady-state flux conditions (i.e. 0.5 cm hr−1, 1 cm hr−1, 1.5 cm hr−1 and 2 cm hr−1) were applied, transport parameters including pore water velocity and dispersivity were determined for both unsaturated and saturated sections along the column. Results showed that under saturated conditions the dispersivity was fairly constant and independent of the flux. In contrast, dispersivity under unsaturated conditions was flux dependent and increased at lower flux. For our porous medium the dispersion coefficient related best to the quotient of the pore water velocity divided by the water content. A simulation model of riverbed-aquifer flux interaction should take this into account.


Soil Research ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Mallants

Transport parameters obtained from laboratory tracer experiments were used to evaluate the stochastic form of the equilibrium convection–dispersion equation (CDE) in describing the transition of scale, i.e. from the column or local scale to a larger field scale. Local-scale solute breakthrough curves (BTCs) were measured in 1-m-long and 0.3-m-diameter undisturbed soil columns by means of time-domain reflectometry at six depths for a 79-h input pulse of chloride. The local-scale data were analysed in terms of the equilibrium CDE and the mobile–immobile non-equilibrium transport model (MIM). At the local scale, the MIM transport model better described the observed early breakthrough and the tailing of the BTC than did the CDE. A linear regression analysis indicated that the relationship between the hydrodynamic dispersion D and pore-water velocity v was of the form D = 31vl.92 (correlation ρv,D = 0.74). Averaging of the local-scale BTCs across the field produced a large-scale or field-scale mean BTC; at the greatest observation depth (0.8 m) the field-scale dispersivity <D>/<v> = λ equals 0.656 m. The results further showed that for large values of the mean dispersion coefficient, <D>, local-scale dispersion is an important mechanism for field-scale solute spreading, whereas the standard deviation, σD, and the correlation between v and D, ρvD, have negligible effects on field-scale transport. Stochastic stream tube models supplemented with statistical properties of local-scale transport parameters provide a practical and computationally efficient tool to describe heterogeneous solute transport at large spatial scales.


2016 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thilo Behrends ◽  
Iris van der Veen ◽  
Alwina Hoving ◽  
Jasper Griffioen

AbstractThe Rupel Clay member in the Netherlands largely corresponds to the Boom Formation in Belgium, and this marine, clay-rich deposit is a potential candidate to host radioactive waste disposal facilities. Prediction of the speciation of radionuclides in Rupel Clay pore water and their retardation by interactions with Rupel Clay components requires knowledge about the composition of Rupel Clay pore water, the inventory of reactive solids and understanding of interactions between Rupel Clay and pore water. Here, we studied Rupel Clay material which was obtained from cores collected in the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands, and from drilling cuttings retrieved from a drilling in the province of Limburg, the Netherlands. Pore water was obtained by mechanical squeezing of Rupel Clay material from Zeeland. Additionally, anaerobic dilution experiments were performed in which the clay material was suspended with demineralised water or a 0.1M NaHCO3solution. Solid-phase characterisation included determination of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur contents, measurement of cation exchange capacity (CEC) and sequential extraction of iron phases.In contrast to the pore water in Belgian Boom Clay, pore water collected from the location in Zeeland has a higher salinity, with chloride concentrations corresponding to 70–96% of those in seawater. The high chloride concentrations most likely result from the intrusion of ions from saline waters above the Rupel Clay in Zeeland. Cation exchange during salinisation might account for the observed deficit of marine cations (Na, K, Mg) and excess of Ca concentrations, in comparison with seawater. The measured CEC values at both locations in the Netherlands vary between 7 and 35 meq(100g)−1and are, for most samples, in the range reported for Boom Clay in Belgium (7–30meq(100g)−1).Pore water and solid-phase composition indicate that Rupel Clay from Zeeland has been affected by oxidation of pyrite or other Fe(II)-containing solids. When coupled to the dissolution of calcium carbonates, oxidation of pyrite can account for the elevated sulphate and calcium concentrations measured in some of the pore waters. The relatively low concentrations of pyrite, organic carbon and calcite in the Rupel Clay in Zeeland, in comparison to Limburg, might be an indicator for an oxidation event. Higher contents of dithionite-extractable Fe in Rupel Clay in Zeeland (0.7–2.6mg Fe / g clay) than in Limburg (0.4–0.5mg Fe / g clay) might also be a consequence of the oxidation of Fe(II) minerals. Oxidation in the past could have accompanied partial erosion of Rupel Clay in Zeeland before deposition of the Breda Formation. However, indications are given that oxidation occurred in some of the pore waters after sampling and that partial oxidation of the cores during storage cannot be excluded. Results from dilution experiments substantiate the influence of equilibration with calcium carbonates on pore water composition. Furthermore, removal of dissolved sulphate upon interaction with Rupel Clay has been observed in some dilution experiments, possibly involving microbial sulphate reduction.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 1951
Author(s):  
Quillan L. Arico ◽  
Zoie R. Kassis ◽  
Robert G. Maliva ◽  
Weixing Guo ◽  
W. Scott Manahan ◽  
...  

Brackish-water reverse osmosis (BWRO) desalination facilities are designed to treat feedwater within a fixed range in salinity. If the salinity and ion concentrations of the feedwater rises above the maximum design concentrations, then the plant may ultimately fail. BWRO plants typically use groundwater as a feedwater source. Prior to the process design, a detailed groundwater assessment is made to characterize the source aquifer system and to develop a solute-transport model that is used to project the changes in water quality over the expected useful life of the facility. Solute transport-modeling performed for the Collier County (Florida) South BWRO facility, which was designed to produce 30,303 m3/d with an expansion to 75,758 m3/d, used an aquifer system conceptual model that assumed upwards migration over time of brackish waters with higher salinities into the production zones. This conceptual model is typical of how most BWRO systems developed in the United States operate. The original solute transport model predicted a range of increases in dissolved chloride concentrations over a 20-year period from a low of 5 mg/L/yr, a mid-range of 35 mg/L/yr, and a high range of 85 mg/L/yr. Actual data collected over a 11- to 13.5-year period showed that the dissolved chloride concentration average of the feed water decreased by 16 mg/L/yr. The original conceptual model was found to be inaccurate in that it suggested an upwards recharging system, whereas downward leakage (or perhaps lateral migration) of fresher water appears to be occurring in the system. This is an example of a long-term solute-transport model audit, which is rarely performed, in which a new conceptual model was found to be applicable to an aquifer system used to feed a BWRO facility.


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