Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services offer a cost efficient technology that permits transfer of standardised data from distributed sources, removing the need for data to be regularly uploaded to a centralised database. When combined with community defined exchange standards, the OGC services offer a chance to access the latest data from the originating agency and return the data in a consistent format. Interchange and mark-up languages such as the Geography Markup Language (GML) provide standard structures for transferring geospatial information over the web. The IUGS Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (CGI) has an on-going collaborative project to develop a data model and exchange language based on GML for geological map and borehole data, the GeoScience Mark-up Language (GeoSciML). The Australian Government Geoscience Information Committee (GGIC) has used the GeoSciML model as a basis to cover mineral resources (EarthResourceML), and the Canadian Groundwater Information Network (GIN) has extended GeoSciML into the groundwater domain (GWML). The focus of these activities is to develop geoscience community schema that use globally accepted geospatial web service data exchange standards.

This data set comprises one of three archives of Geoscience Australia work in the project "A Consistent Approach to Groundwater Recharge Determination in Data Poor Areas". The project was carried out by CSIRO and Geoscience Australia and was funded by the National Water Commission Raising National Water Standards program. The data contained included Original data sourced for the project, Final data produced by the project, MXD's of maps created, and tools used within the project. The archives created for this project comprise: 1. Data archive. Data set stored in the GA CDS. Geocat Record number 79804 2. Adminstration and publication archive. Documents stored in TRIM Project P10/67 RECHARGE-DISCHARGE PROJECT 3. References archive. Endnote library located at \\nas\eg\water\References\Recharge_Discharge_Project.enl For more information about the creation of these archives, including the location of files, see TRIM D2014-102808 For more information about the project, see the following references: Leaney F, Crosbie R, O'Grady A, Jolly I, Gow L, Davies P, Wilford J and Kilgour P. 2011. Recharge and discharge estimation in data poor areas: Scientific reference guide. CSIRO: Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. 61 pp (GA Record No. 2011/46 GACat # 71941) Jolly I, Gow L, Davies P, O'Grady A, Leaney F, Crosbie R, Wilford J and Kilgour P. 2011. Recharge and discharge estimation in data poor areas: User guide for the recharge and discharge estimation spreadsheets and MapConnect. CSIRO: Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. 40 pp. (GA Record No. 2011/35 GeoCat # 71940) Pain, C.F., Gow, L.J, Wilford, J.R. and Kilgour, P. 2011. Mapping approaches to recharge and discharge estimation and associated input datasets. A report for CSIRO: Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. (Professional Opinion No. 2011/01 GeoCat # 70392)

The 'River Murray Corridor (RMC) Salinity Mapping Project', provides important new information in relation to salinity hazard and management along in a 20 km-wide swath along a 450 km reach of the River Murray. The project area contains iconic wetlands, national and state forest parks, irrigation and dryland farming assets and the Murray River, significant areas of which are at risk from increasing salinisation of the River, the floodplain, and underlying groundwater resources. The project utilised a hydrogeological systems approach to integrate and analyse data obtained from a large regional airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey (24,000 line km @ 150m line-spacing in a 20 km-wide swath along the Murray River), field mapping, and lithological and hydrogeochemical data obtained from drilling. New holistic inversions of the AEM data have been used to map key elements of the hydrogeological system and salinity extent in the shallow sub-surface (top 20-50 m). The Murray River is known to display great complexity in surface-groundwater interactions along its course. Electrical geophysical methods (such as AEM) are able to map surface-groundwater interaction due to the contrast between (electrically resistive) fresh water in the river, and (electrically conductive) brackish to saline groundwater in adjacent sediments. The location of significant river flush zones is influenced both by underlying geology and the location of locks, weirs and irrigation districts. The study has also identified significant areas of high salinity hazard in the floodplain and river, and quantified the salt store and salt load across the floodplain. The study has also identified sub-surface factors (including saline groundwater, shrinking flush zones, declining water tables) linked to vegetation health declines.

This Record was originally issued as a BMR Engineering Geology Technical Note dated 11 March 1977. The original document was admitted as evidence in the Canberra Coroner's Enquiry into the explosion and fire at the Center Cinema, at hearings in August 1977. Minor amendments have been made to the original. Following an explosion at the Center Cinema in Canberra City on 10 February 1978, groundwater seepage into the building was found to be contaminated with hydrocarbons. This report discussess hydrocarbon pollution of groundwater in general and the hydrogeology of Canberra City. Hydrocarbon pollution makes groundwater unfit for drinking, and gas may accumulate in buildings and constitute a fire hazard.

This Record describes the scope of the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) Automatic Data Processing System and outlines Stage 1(Data Transcription), and describes Stage 2, the checking of coded data. The subject of this record is the permanent storage, updating, and retrieval for processing of the data passed through Stages 1 and 2. The system described was developed for application to drill stem test (DST; Formation Test) data by G.E. Seidel (BMR) and then extended to suit the general GAB data by G. Krebs (BRGM).

Broken Hill Managed Aquifer recharge Projects 3D models and Fly-through

During this period planning began for the second phase of theProject, a hydrogeological assessment of the Basin based on available data. The Steering Committee at its meeting on 2 December 1982 discussed ways in which the existing hydrogeological data might be presented, and later that month Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) hydrogeologist R.Evans visited the State Authorities to arrange ways of transferring hydrogeological data to BMR; work on the hydrogeological phase is scheduled to start in July 1983. At BMR, C.M. Brown and A.E.Stephenson continued to compile 1:3/4 million scale geological maps, and prepared an outline of the bulletin on the geological synthesis; cartographer G Butterworth began the compilation and drafting of the 1:1 million geological map. Members of the Steering Committee noted with regret the death on 9 January of one of their number, Mr Don Currey, Supervising Geologist of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission. Mr Currey's contribution to the Project is recorded with appreciation.

The Steering Committee met in June. An important aspect of the meeting was a discussion on the hydrogeological phase of the Project, which at Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) formally began at the beginning of July. It was considered that the hydrogeological assessment should include: the acquisition from State Authorities of all available data, which would then be entered into a BMR database designed for the Project; the preparation of an initial report assessing the available data and recording deficiencies, together with accompanying maps including the following: 1:1 million scale water table and potential contours for the three/four hydrostratigraphic units; 1:1 million scale salinity variations including specific ions, for the three/four hydrostratigraphic units; 1:2.5 million scale maps depicting amount of water abstracted-added per unit area, recharge-discharge areas, distribution and type of salting, streamflow-groundwater interactions, and distribution of aquifer parameters for a 7-layer hydrogeological model (aquifers and aquicludes). Compilation of the 1:1 million scale geological map of the basin continued at BMR.

How much easier it would be to map and quantify the key elements of the hydrological cycle if the Earth's surface was transparent! Unfortunately, this is not the case and it is this very inability to penetrate to sufficient depths to map and quantify groundwater components of the hydrological cycle that currently necessitates the integration of satellite- airborne- and ground observations. In Australia, important advances have been made in the last 3 years in quantifying key elements of the hydrological cycle. This has been achieved in part through the increased use of Landsat, MODIS, SPOT, hyperspectral, NOAA and LiDAR datasets to improve the mapping and quantification of surface water, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and recharge and discharge. However, significant limitations remain in using satellite-based platforms alone for quantifying catchment water balances, surface-groundwater interactions, groundwater resource estimation and managing groundwater dependent ecosystems. Increasingly, the need to map the key elements of the hydrological cycle to calibrate water balance models and for environmental management, is leading to the development of more holistic systems approaches, involving the integration of satellite-, airborne and ground-based techniques and measurements. One example is in the River Murray Corridor (RMC) in SE Australia, where previous attempts to assess the water needs for iconic floodplain wetland ecosystems, based largely on satellite-based measurements, did not adequately take into account sub-surface soil conditions and groundwater quality and processes. In floodplain environments such as the River Murray Floodplain, the factors that govern tree health are invariably complex, and include a wide range of biophysical and biogeochemical factors.

During the period under review, progress with the first phase of the Project continued. Two items of interest, described in more detail in this report, are the start of IGCP Project 184 'Palaeohydrology of low latitude deserts', and Bureau of Mineral Resources field work in the northwest New South Wales part of the Basin with the objective of adding more detail to the surface geology as depicted on existing 1:500 000 scale maps. The Steering Committee met in Melbourne on 10 June.