Abstract A critical hydrological process is the interaction between rivers and aquifers. However, accurately determining this interaction from one method alone is difficult. At a point, the water exchange in the riverbed can be determined using temperature variations over depth. Over the river reach, differential gauging can be used to determine averaged losses or gains. This study combines these two methods and applies them to a 34 km reach of a semiarid river in eastern Australia under highly transient conditions. It is found that high and low river flows translate into high and low riverbed Darcy fluxes, and that these are strongly losing during high flows, and only slightly losing or gaining for low flows. The spatial variability in riverbed Darcy fluxes may be explained by riverbed heterogeneity, with higher variability at greater spatial scales. Although the river‐aquifer gradient is the main driver of riverbed Darcy flux at high flows, considerable uncertainty in both the flux magnitude and direction estimates were found during low flows. The reach‐scale results demonstrate that high‐flow events account for 64% of the reach loss (or 43% if overbank events are excluded) despite occurring only 11% of the time. By examining the relationship between total flow volume, river stage and duration for in‐channel flows, we find the loss ratio (flow loss/total flow) can be greater for smaller flows than larger flows with similar duration. Implications of the study for the modeling and management of connected water resources are also discussed.
A review of heat and solute transport in sediments demonstrates that the use of heat as a tracer has not been experimentally evaluated under the same experimental conditions as those used for the evaluation of solute as a tracer. Furthermore, there appears to be disagreement in the earth science literature over the significance of the thermal dispersivity term. To help resolve this disagreement, detailed experimentation with typical groundwater flow velocities (Darcy range, Re < 2.5) was conducted in a specifically designed hydraulic tank containing well‐sorted saturated sand. The experiment enabled, for the first time, the precise monitoring of heat and solute tracer movement from a point source in separate runs under identical solid matrix and steady state flow conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that heat transport with natural groundwater flow velocities can reach a transition zone between conduction and convection (0.5 < Pe t < 2.5). The thermal dispersion behavior can be described by using a thermal dispersivity coefficient and the square of the thermal front velocity. We propose an empirical formulation for thermal dispersion with Darcy flow in natural porous media and clarify the disagreement regarding its significance. Finally, it was observed that Darcy velocities independently derived from heat and solute experimentation show a systematic discrepancy of up to 20%, and that experimental thermal dispersion results contain significant scatter.
Abstract Accurate determination of groundwater state of confinement and compressible storage properties at vertical resolution over depth is notoriously difficult. We use the hydraulic head response to atmospheric tides at 2 cpd frequency as a tracer to quantify barometric efficiency ( BE ) and specific storage ( S s ) over depth. Records of synthesized Earth tides, atmospheric pressure, and hydraulic heads measured in nine piezometers completed at depths between 5 and 55 m into unconsolidated smectitic clay and silt, sand and gravel were examined in the frequency domain. The barometric efficiency increased over depth from ∼0.05 in silty clay to ∼0.15 in sands and gravels. BE for silty clay was confirmed by calculating the loading efficiency as 0.95 using rainfall at the surface. Specific storage was calculated using effective rather than total moisture. The differences in phase between atmospheric pressure and hydraulic heads at 2 cpd were ∼180° below 10 m indicating confined conditions despite the low BE . Heads in the sediment above a fine sand and silt layer at 12 m exhibited a time variable phase difference between 0° and 180° indicating varying confinement. Our results illustrate that the atmospheric tide at 2 cpd is a powerful natural tracer for quantifying groundwater state of confinement and compressible storage properties in layered formations from hydraulic heads and atmospheric pressure records without the need for externally induced hydraulic stress. This approach could significantly improve the development of conceptual hydrogeological model used for groundwater resource development and management.
Abstract. Evaluating the possibility of leakage through low-permeability geological strata is critically important for sustainable water supplies, the extraction of fuels from coal and other strata, and the confinement of waste within the earth. The current work demonstrates that relatively rapid and realistic vertical hydraulic conductivity (Kv) measurements of aquitard cores using accelerated gravity can constrain and compliment larger-scale assessments of hydraulic connectivity. Steady-state fluid velocity through a low-K porous sample is linearly related to accelerated gravity (g level) in a centrifuge permeameter (CP) unless consolidation or geochemical reactions occur. A CP module was custom designed to fit a standard 2 m diameter geotechnical centrifuge (550 g maximum) with a capacity for sample dimensions up to 100 mm diameter and 200 mm length, and a total stress of ∼ 2 MPa at the base of the core. Formation fluids were used as influent to limit any shrink–swell phenomena, which may alter the permeability. Kv results from CP testing of minimally disturbed cores from three sites within a clayey-silt formation varied from 10−10 to 10−7 m s−1 (number of samples, n = 18). Additional tests were focussed on the Cattle Lane (CL) site, where Kv within the 99 % confidence interval (n = 9) was 1.1 × 10−9 to 2.0 × 10−9 m s−1. These Kv results were very similar to an independent in situ Kv method based on pore pressure propagation though the sequence. However, there was less certainty at two other core sites due to limited and variable Kv data. Blind standard 1 g column tests underestimated Kv compared to CP and in situ Kv data, possibly due to deionised water interactions with clay, and were more time-consuming than CP tests. Our Kv results were compared with the set-up of a flow model for the region, and considered in the context of heterogeneity and preferential flow paths at site and formation scale. Reasonable assessments of leakage and solute transport through aquitards over multi-decadal timescales can be achieved by accelerated core testing together with complimentary hydrogeological monitoring, analysis, and modelling.
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