Authors / CoAuthors
Gow, L.J. | Brodie, R.S. | Apps, H. | Lawrie, K. | Somerville, P.
Abstract
One of the primary requirements of managing water resources sustainably is an understanding of the water balance. Groundwater recharge is a key input of any water balance model but is seldom measured, with single point measurements often applied to a catchment or region. Other times, recharge is assumed to be a percentage of annual rainfall. In the absence of sufficient direct measurements, indirect approaches for estimating recharge in data poor areas using surrogate measures have been developed. These approaches commonly use rainfall data for recharge estimation This approach may be a valuable tool in some landscapes, however in some floodplain landscape, particularly in losing reaches of river systems, it is not able to take into account understanding of local surface-groundwater interaction associated with river or lake leakage or flood-related recharge. Using these indirect approaches, estimates of recharge to the Darling Floodplain region is very low (0.1 - 7.3mm/yr; mean 1.8mm/yr), suggesting that groundwater and surface water are effectively disconnected. In contrast, measurements from a recently established bore network (40 bores over 7,500km2) recorded a 0.5 - 3.4m response to the 2010/11 floods in the shallow aquifer and a 0.2-4m response in the deeper semi-confined aquifer. This indicates a high degree of connectivity between surface water and groundwater across the floodplain during major flood events. In summary, caution needs to be exercised in using indirect estimates of recharge in floodplain environments, and holistic, long term field-based data is essential where the value of the water resource dictates.
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
73547
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Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
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2601
Australia
Keywords
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- External PublicationAbstract
- ( Theme )
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- groundwater
- ( Theme )
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- hydrogeology
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
Publication Date
2012-02-15T00:00:00
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