Challenges in Estimating Groundwater Recharge in Semi-arid and Semi-confined Alluvial Systems

Abstract:

Uncertainty surrounding rates of groundwater recharge limits overall confidence in groundwater allocations and can lead to over-conservative assumptions in groundwater impact assessments. This problem is even more acute where more complex unsaturated flow paths are considered, such as within semi-confined alluvial systems. Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed an experimental study within the Condamine Alluvium, a significant aquifer in semi-arid eastern Australia, is used to determine groundwater recharge mechanisms for three distinct soil types (two vertosols and one chromosol) on both irrigated and non-irrigated areas. This variety of soil types, including shrink-swell clays, overly a higher permeability sand and gravel unsaturated zone and aquifer. The analysis uses 15-minute soil moisture data from Sentek EnviroSCAN Probe devices installed at 16 sites, with eight sensors in each site at depths from 100 to 4000mm. The vertosols exhibited signs of dynamic preferential flow paths due to the shrink swell properties of the soil. Precipitation rate and initial soil moisture content affect the infiltration response times for the three soils, with the chromosols requiring multiple precipitation events before experiencing any significant soil moisture storage changes in the lower depths (2000 – 4000mm). Storage changes below the root zone to a depth of 4m indicate large rates of potential recharge, up to 1300mm for the two years of data obtained. However, minimal rise has been observed in the water table (~12 m depth), potentially due to the highly transmissive sand and gravel aquifer. The analysis has shown that only very high temporal resolution monitoring of soil storage changes can effectively capture the dynamic preferential flow water flux. Lower temporal resolution monitoring, at the daily scale or greater, will bias the storage change estimates towards the matrix flow component and risk significant underestimation of the total unsaturated zone water flux providing potential recharge to aquifers.