Groundwater recharge in different physiognomies of the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract:

Since 2014, several cities of southeastern Brazil have grappled with their worst drought in nearly 80 years. To improve water availability in this region, the Brazilian government has studied the possibility of increasing groundwater use, mainly in the Guarani Aquifer System (GAS), the largest (~1.2 million km²) transnational boundary groundwater reservoir in South America. Approximately one half of the outcrop areas of the GAS are located in the Cerrado biome, the main agricultural expansion region in Brazil. Large areas of Cerrado vegetation have been converted into farmland in recent years; however, little attention has been paid to the consequences of this land cover and land use change on groundwater recharge. In this study we assessed groundwater recharge in different physiognomies of the Cerrado located in an outcrop area of the GAS. Water table fluctuations were measured from October 2011 through August 2013, by 64 monitoring wells distributed on five physiognomies of the undisturbed Cerrado. We used 20 (2.2±0.3 m), 20 (4.3±1.4 m), 14 (4.7±1.9 m), 9 (6.2±0.7 m), and 1 (42 m) monitoring wells (and average depth of wells) for "campo limpo" (cerrado grassland), "campo sujo" (shrub cerrado), "campo cerrado" (shrub cerrado), "cerrado sensu stricto" (wooded cerrado), and "cerrado sensu stricto denso" (cerrado woodland), respectively. Recharge was computed for each well using the Water Table Fluctuation method. The measured precipitation for hydrological years 2011-12 and 2012-13 were 1247 mm and 1194 mm, respectively. We found values of average annual recharge of 363 mm, 354 mm, 324 mm, and 315 mm for "campo limpo", "campo sujo","campo cerrado", and "cerrado sensu stricto", respectively. We did not find changes in the water table level in the one well located in the "cerrado sensu stricto denso". The water table in this well was 35 m deep; therefore, the amount of water that eventually reached the saturated zone was not enough to cause a rapid change in the water table level. We also found the same characteristic in five wells deeper than 7 m located in "campo cerrado" and "cerrado sensu stricto". Our results suggest that recharge tends to decrease with the increase in thickness of the vadose zone and with the rise density of vegetation (grassland to woodland).