Using Hydraulic Head, Chloride and Electrical Conductivity Data to Distinguish Between Mountain-Front and Mountain-Block Recharge to Basin Aquifers
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1629–1648, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-1629-2018 © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Using hydraulic head, chloride and electrical conductivity data to distinguish between mountain-front and mountain-block recharge to basin aquifers Etienne Bresciani1,2, Roger H. Cranswick1,3, Eddie W. Banks1, Jordi Batlle-Aguilar1,4, Peter G. Cook1, and Okke Batelaan1 1National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, School of the Environment, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia 2Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 02792, Republic of Korea 3Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Government of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia 4Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA Correspondence: Etienne Bresciani (etienne.bresciani@flinders.edu.au) Received: 8 June 2017 – Discussion started: 31 July 2017 Revised: 10 January 2018 – Accepted: 29 January 2018 – Published: 2 March 2018 Abstract. Numerous basin aquifers in arid and semi-arid data indicate that not only the Quaternary aquifers but also regions of the world derive a significant portion of their the deeper Tertiary aquifers are recharged through MFR and recharge from adjacent mountains. Such recharge can ef- not MBR. It is expected that this finding will have a signif- fectively occur through either stream infiltration in the icant impact on the management of water resources in the mountain-front zone (mountain-front recharge, MFR) or sub- region. This study demonstrates the relevance of using hy- surface flow from the mountain (mountain-block recharge, draulic head, chloride and EC data to distinguish between MBR).
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