scholarly journals Monitoring the Drainage Efficiency of Infiltration Trenches in Fractured and Karstified Limestone via Time-Lapse Hydrogeophysical Approach

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo De Carlo ◽  
Maria Clementina Caputo ◽  
Rita Masciale ◽  
Michele Vurro ◽  
Ivan Portoghese
Keyword(s):  
Warm Season ◽  
Infiltration Rate ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Infiltration Process ◽  
Rock Formation ◽  
Process Dynamics

In the test site of Castellana Grotte (Southern Italy), since 2016, around 2300 m3d−1 of tertiary treated wastewater has been alternatively spread in nine infiltration trenches, dug into fractured and karstified limestone. In one of these trenches, located upstream, seasonal variations in the infiltration rate were observed, with a lower infiltration rate during summer than in winter. This effect could be due to the occurrence of a bioclogging phenomenon in the warm season. In addition, time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was carried out in two different periods, corresponding to the wet and dry seasons, in order to investigate the infiltration process dynamics below the bottom of the trench. Remarkable variability was observed between the south and north sides of the trench—clearly related to the local-scale heterogeneity of the rock formation of the trenches. The results suggest that such an integrated approach should be considered of great interest in case of using infiltration trenches as managed aquifer recharge (MAR) plants. This methodology could provide useful information about the heterogeneities of the rock formation, supporting an alert system for the identification of clogging effects during the life cycle of the plant.

Generalization and formalization of the US EPA procedure for design of treated wastewater aquifer recharge basins: II. Retrofit of Souhil Wadi (Nabeul, Tunisia) pilot plant

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 764-771
Author(s):  
Hamadi Kallali ◽  
Mitsuo Yoshida ◽  
Jamila Tarhouni ◽  
Naceur Jedidi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Pilot Plant ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Infiltration Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Us Epa

The ‘Cap Bon’ peninsula in Tunisia suffers from intensive tourist activities, high demographic increase and industrial development. As groundwater had been for a long time the main water source, aquifers had been subject to a severe depletion and seawater intrusion. Despite the measures taken prohibiting new drillings and water carrying by the construction of a waterway linking the region to the north-west region of Tunisia, the problem of water shortage persists. Artificial recharge of groundwater with treated wastewater has been decided as a technique to replenish the region aquifers. A pilot plant was constructed in the early 1980s in Souhil Wadi (Nabeul) area. Many experiments have been carried out on this plant and have led to controversial opinions about its performance and its impact on groundwater contamination. This contribution concerns the application of the procedure that we developed from the generalization and the formalization of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) methodology for the design of treated wastewater aquifer recharge basins. This upgrading procedure implemented in a spreadsheet, has been used to retrofit the Souhil Wadi facility in order to improve its performance. This method highlighted the importance of the safety factor to estimate wastewater infiltration rate from clean water permeability measurements. It has, also, demonstrated the discordance between the initial design parameters of Souhil Wadi facility and their current status as they have changed with time and the infiltration capacity of the basins has been affected by clogging. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that with the current state of clogging of the basins, the design infiltration rate limited by the most restrictive layer (6.1 cm/hr) corresponds to 22% of the surface infiltration rate reached after a drying period of 10 d, which means that we need more basins to absorb the daily loading rate. The design method leads to the construct ion of five basins of 961 m2 (31 × 31 m) each, with one basin being flooded for 3 d with 27 cm of water daily and rested for 10 d. The current status is completely different as only four basins are constructed with 324 m2 each. Many actions in the short, medium and long term have been advised in order to improve the system performance.

scholarly journals Challenges and Prospects of Using Treated Wastewater to Manage Water Scarcity Crises in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1971
Author(s):  
Asad Sarwar Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Gulf Cooperation Council ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Forage Crops ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Groundwater Levels ◽  
Gcc Countries ◽  
The World

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are located in the driest part of the world with an annual per capita water availability of 500 m3 compared to the world average of 6000 m3. Agricultural water demand, which is more than 80% of the total water consumption, is primarily met through the massive exploitation of groundwater. The enormous imbalance between groundwater discharge (27.8 billion m3) and recharge (5.3 billion m3) is causing the excessive lowering of groundwater levels. Therefore, GCC countries are investing heavily in the production of nonconventional water resources such as desalination of seawater and treated wastewater. Currently, 439 desalination plants are annually producing 5.75 billion m3 of desalinated water in the GCC countries. The annual wastewater collection is about 4.0 billion m3, of which 73% is treated with the help of 300 wastewater treatment plants. Despite extreme water poverty, only 39% of the treated wastewater is reused, and the remaining is discharged into the sea. The treated wastewater (TWW) is used for the landscape, forestry, and construction industries. However, its reuse to irrigate food and forage crops is restricted due to health, social, religious, and environmental concerns. Substantial research evidence exists that treated wastewater can safely be used to grow food and forage crops under the agroclimatic conditions of the GCC countries by adopting appropriate management measures. Therefore, GCC countries should work on increasing the use of TWW in the agriculture sector. Increased use of TWW in agriculture can significantly reduce the pressure on freshwater resources. For this purpose, a comprehensive awareness campaign needs to be initiated to address the social and religious concerns of farming communities and consumers. Several internal and external risks can jeopardize the sustainable use of treated wastewater in the GCC countries. These include climate change, increasing costs, technological and market-driven changes, and regional security issues. Therefore, effective response mechanisms should be developed to mitigate future risks and threats. For this purpose, an integrated approach involving all concerned local and regional stakeholders needs to be adopted.

scholarly journals Evidence of Preferential Flow Activation in the Vadose Zone via Geophysical Monitoring

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1358
Author(s):  
Lorenzo De Carlo ◽  
Kimberlie Perkins ◽  
Maria Clementina Caputo
Keyword(s):  
Preferential Flow ◽  
Water Movement ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Water Dynamics ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Spatial Moments ◽  
Artificial Rainfall ◽  
Preferential Pathways

Preferential pathways allow rapid and non-uniform water movement in the subsurface due to strong heterogeneity of texture, composition, and hydraulic properties. Understanding the importance of preferential pathways is crucial, because they have strong impact on flow and transport hydrodynamics in the unsaturated zone. Particularly, improving knowledge of the water dynamics is essential for estimating travel time through soil to quantify hazards for groundwater, assess aquifer recharge rates, improve agricultural water management, and prevent surface stormflow and flooding hazards. Small scale field heterogeneities cannot be always captured by the limited number of point scale measurements collected. In order to overcome these limitations, noninvasive geophysical techniques have been widely used in the last decade to predict hydrodynamic processes, due to their capability to spatialize hydrogeophysical properties with high resolution. In the test site located in Bari, Southern Italy, the geophysical approach, based on electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) monitoring, has been implemented to detect preferential pathways triggered by an artificial rainfall event. ERT-derived soil moisture estimations were obtained in order to quantitatively predict the water storage (m3m−3), water velocity (ms−1), and spread (m2) through preferential pathways by using spatial moments analysis.

The optical behaviour of snow during a melting season at Ny Ålesund (Svalbard, Norway)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Salzano ◽  
Christian Lanconelli ◽  
Giulio Esposito ◽  
Marco Giusto ◽  
Mauro Montagnoli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Snow Cover ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Optical Behaviour ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Snow Cover Area ◽  
Significant Information

<p><span>Polar areas are the most sensitive targets of </span><span>the </span><span>climate change and the continuous monitoring of the cryosphere represents a critical issue. The satellite remote sensing can fill this gap but further integration between remotely-sensed multi-spectral images and field data is crucial to validate retrieval algorithms and climatological models. The optical behaviour of snow, at different wavelengths, provides significant information about the micro-physical characteristics of the surface and this allow to discriminate different snow/ice covers. The aim of this work is to present an approach based on combining unmanned observations on spectral albedo and on the analysis of time-lapse images of sky and ground conditions in a</span><span>n </span><span>Ar</span><span>c</span><span>tic </span><span>test-site </span><span>(Svalbard, Norway). Terrestrial photography can provide, in fact, important information about the cloud cover and support the discrimination between white-sky or clear-sky illuminating conditions. Similarly, time-lapse cameras can provide a detailed description of the snow cover, estimating the fractional snow cover area. The spectral albedo was obtained by a narrow band device that was compared to a full-range commercial system and to remotely sensed data acquired during the 2015 spring/summer period at the </span><span>Amundsen - Nobile</span><span> Climate Change Tower (Ny </span><span>Å</span><span>lesund). The results confirmed the possibility to have continuous observations of the snow surface (microphisical) characteristics and highlighted the opportunity to monitor the spectral variations of snowed surfaces during the melting period. It was possible, </span><span>therefore,</span><span> to estimate spectral indexes, such as NDSI and SWIR albedo, and to found interesting links between both features and air/ground temperatures, wind-speed and precipitations. Different melting phases were detected and different processes were associated with the observed spectral variations.</span></p>

scholarly journals Sewer Mining as a Distributed Intervention for Water-Energy-Materials in the Circular Economy Suitable for Dense Urban Environments: A Real World Demonstration in the City of Athens

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 2764
Author(s):  
Argyro Plevri ◽  
Klio Monokrousou ◽  
Christos Makropoulos ◽  
Christos Lioumis ◽  
Nikolaos Tazes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Water Reuse ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Treatment Unit ◽  
Plant Nursery

Water reuse and recycling is gaining momentum as a way to improve the circularity of cities, while recognizing the central role of water within a circular economy (CE) context. However, such interventions often depend on the location of wastewater treatment plants and the treatment technologies installed in their premises, while relying on an expensive piped network to ensure that treated wastewater gets transported from the treatment plant to the point of demand. Thus, the penetration level of treated wastewater as a source of non-potable supply in dense urban environments is limited. This paper focuses on the demonstration of a sewer mining (SM) unit as a source of treated wastewater, as part of a larger and more holistic configuration that examines all three ‘streams’ associated with water in CE: water, energy and materials. The application area is the Athens Plant Nursery, in the (water stressed) city of Athens, Greece. SM technology is in fact a mobile wastewater treatment unit in containers able to extract wastewater from local sewers, treat it directly and reuse at the point of demand even in urban environments with limited space. The unit consists of a membrane bioreactor unit (MBR) and a UV disinfection unit and produces high quality reclaimed water for irrigation and also for aquifer recharge during the winter. Furthermore, a short overview of the integrated nutrient and energy recovery subsystem is presented in order to conceptualise the holistic approach and circularity of the whole configuration. The SM technology demonstrates flexibility, scalability and replicability, which are important characteristics for innovation uptake within the emerging CE context and market.

scholarly journals Ponding time in infiltration process for different land use

2021 ◽  
Vol 930 (1) ◽  
pp. 012054
Author(s):  
I K Hidayati ◽  
Suhardjono ◽  
D Harisuseno ◽  
A Suharyanto
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Sugar Cane ◽  
Infiltration Rate ◽  
Soil Types ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Infiltration Process ◽  
Double Ring ◽  
Density Values

Abstract Ponding time is the period from the beginning of rainfall/infiltration until the occurrence of ponding. This paper aims to determine the infiltration rate and ponding time on different land uses, such as open fields, residential, agriculture, and vegetation. This research was conducted in one of the watersheds in the Brantas River Basin, namely the Lesti River Basin, which is administratively included in the Malang Regency, East Java. The Lesti River is one of the tributaries of the Brantas River, which originates around Mount Semeru, a very intensive area for planting rice, sugar cane, and coffee. Infiltration data were collected at 35 points using a double-ring infiltrometer spread across the Lesti watershed with Andosol, Mediterranean, and Regosol soil types. At the same time, ponding time was obtained from infiltration measurements in the field using the flooding method. The physical properties of the soils were tested in the laboratory to obtain water content, porosity, and bulk density values. This study resulted in the infiltration rate and ponding time for each land use and shows how the physical properties of the soil affect the ponding time.

Monitoring Tracer Experiments at the Krauthausen Test Site Using Time-Lapse ERT

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kemna ◽  
J. Vanderborght ◽  
K. Borgers ◽  
K. Gößling ◽  
A. Verweerd ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Lapse ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Tracer Experiments

scholarly journals Quantitative high-resolution observations of soil water dynamics in a complicated architecture using time-lapse ground-penetrating radar

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 1125-1139 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Klenk ◽  
S. Jaumann ◽  
K. Roth
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Water Content ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Ground Penetrating Radar ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Water Dynamics ◽  
Soil Water Dynamics ◽  
Capillary Fringe ◽  
Ground Penetrating

Abstract. High-resolution time-lapse ground-penetrating radar (GPR) observations of advancing and retreating water tables can yield a wealth of information about near-surface water content dynamics. In this study, we present and analyze a series of imbibition, drainage and infiltration experiments that have been carried out at our artificial ASSESS test site and observed with surface-based GPR. The test site features a complicated but known subsurface architecture constructed with three different kinds of sand. It allows the study of soil water dynamics with GPR under a wide range of different conditions. Here, we assess in particular (i) the feasibility of monitoring the dynamic shape of the capillary fringe reflection and (ii) the relative precision of monitoring soil water dynamics averaged over the whole vertical extent by evaluating the bottom reflection. The phenomenology of the GPR response of a dynamically changing capillary fringe is developed from a soil physical point of view. We then explain experimentally observed phenomena based on numerical simulations of both the water content dynamics and the expected GPR response.

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