Technical Report Great Artesian Basin Resource Assessment Report 14/2012A
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Technical Report Great Artesian Basin Resource Assessment Report 14/2012A October 2012 Author: Simon Fulton Water Resources Division Department of Land Resource Management PO Box 496 Palmerston NT 0831 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.lrm.nt.gov.au/water/ Copyright © 2012 Northern Territory of Australia This product and all material forming part of it is copyright belonging to the Northern Territory of Australia. You may use this material for your personal, non-commercial use or use it with your organisation for non-commercial purposes, provided that an appropriate acknowledgement is made and the material is not altered in any way. Subject to the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act 1968, you must not make any other use of this product (including copying or reproducing it or part of it in any way) unless you have the written permission of the Northern Territory of Australia to do so. Important Disclaimer The Northern Territory of Australia has tried to make the information in this report as accurate as possible. However, it does not guarantee that the information is totally accurate or complete. Therefore, you should not solely rely on this information when making a commercial decision. No reliance or actions should be made on the information contained within the publication without seeking prior expert professional, scientific and technical advice. To the extent permitted by law, the Northern Territory of Australia (including its employees and agents) excludes all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using, in part or in whole, any information or material contained in this publication. Bibliographic Reference: Fulton S. A., 2012. Technical Report Great Artesian Basin Resource Assessment, Department of Land Resource Management, Report 14/2012A, Darwin, October 2012 Cover Image:- McDills No. 1 Water Resources Branch drilling crew during the rehabilitation of McDills No. 1 Bore, 2001. Courtesy of Peter Jolly ii Contents List of Figures............................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. vi 1. Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background to the Report............................................................................................. 1 1.2. Scope and Objectives................................................................................................... 1 2. Characteristics of the Water Control District................................................................... 2 2.1. Overview of the Great Artesian Basin........................................................................... 2 2.2. Physiography and Biogeographic Regions................................................................... 3 2.3. Landuse........................................................................................................................ 5 2.4. Surface water hydrology ............................................................................................... 7 2.5. Climate........................................................................................................................ 10 2.6. Geology ...................................................................................................................... 13 2.6.1 Rolling Downs Group ..................................................................................................14 2.6.2 Cadna-owie Formation................................................................................................15 2.6.3 Algebuckina Sandstone ..............................................................................................15 2.6.4 Poolowanna Formation ...............................................................................................15 2.6.5 Peera Peera, Crown Point and Purni Formations........................................................16 2.7. Previous Work ............................................................................................................ 19 3. Hydrogeology ................................................................................................................... 20 3.1. J Aquifer...................................................................................................................... 20 3.2. Other Groundwater Resources................................................................................... 23 3.2.1 Quaternary and Tertiary Aquifers ................................................................................23 3.2.2 Rolling Downs Group ..................................................................................................23 3.2.3 Crown Point Formation and Finke Group Aquifers ......................................................23 3.3. Water Quality.............................................................................................................. 24 3.4. Potentiometry and Groundwater Flow Directions ....................................................... 26 3.5. Recharge .................................................................................................................... 29 3.5.1 Direct Infiltration ..........................................................................................................29 3.5.2 Ephemeral River Recharge.........................................................................................29 3.5.3 Recharge Rates to Other Aquifers in the WCD ...........................................................36 3.6. Discharge.................................................................................................................... 36 iii 3.7. Storage ....................................................................................................................... 36 4. Resource Management .................................................................................................... 38 4.1. Groundwater Bore Use and Estimated Extraction ...................................................... 38 4.2. Groundwater Monitoring Network ............................................................................... 41 4.3. Groundwater Dependant Ecosystems (GDEs) ........................................................... 44 4.3.1 J Aquifer......................................................................................................................44 4.3.2 Other...........................................................................................................................44 5. Conclusions and Recommendations ............................................................................. 46 5.1. Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 46 5.2. Uncertainty/Limitations ............................................................................................... 47 5.3. Recommendations...................................................................................................... 48 6. References ........................................................................................................................ 49 Appendix A Hantush Mounding Recharge Rates ........................................................... 52 Appendix B Vogel Recharge Rates .................................................................................. 55 iv List of Figures Figure 1-1 Great Artesian Basin Water Control District............................................................. 1 Figure 2-1 Regional map of the Great Artesian Basin............................................................... 3 Figure 2-2 Physiography and Bioregions .................................................................................. 4 Figure 2-3 Landuse ...................................................................... ............................................ 6 Figure 2-4 Surface Water Basins and gauging stations (active and historic)............................ 8 Figure 2-5 Hydrographs for Finke and Todd River Gauging Stations ....................................... 9 Figure 2-6 A. Average monthly rainfall and potential evaporation, Atula (14214) and B. New Crown (15600) see Figure 2-8 for station locations. .............................................. 10 Figure 2-7 Cumulative difference from average rainfall for New Crown (15600) .................... 11 Figure 2-8 Climate and Rainfall............................................................................................... 12 Figure 2-9 Regional Geological Setting (Basin extents).......................................................... 13 Figure 2-10 Cross section A-B-C .............................................................................................. 17 Figure 2-11 Surface Geology .................................................................................................... 18 Figure 3-1 J Aquifer Boundary Conditions .............................................................................. 22 Figure 3-2 Groundwater quality range in the J aquifer and other aquifers in the WCD........... 25 Figure 3-3 Trilinear piper diagram for GAB WCD aquifers.....................................................