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Climate variability, water allocation and land use change impacts on surface-groundwater interactions and salinity discharge. This project contributes to the national research priority of an Environmentally Sustainable Australia and its three sub-priorities: Water-a critical resource; Overcoming salinity and acidity; and Responding to climate change and variability as well as to the National Water Initiative goal: connected surface and groundwater resources managed as a single resource. These em ....Climate variability, water allocation and land use change impacts on surface-groundwater interactions and salinity discharge. This project contributes to the national research priority of an Environmentally Sustainable Australia and its three sub-priorities: Water-a critical resource; Overcoming salinity and acidity; and Responding to climate change and variability as well as to the National Water Initiative goal: connected surface and groundwater resources managed as a single resource. These embody the clear imperative in Australia to improve the management and use of our stream and groundwater systems in the face of long-term climate variability and changing water use. Knowledge gained from this study of coupled surface-groundwater systems in nationally important catchments will be used to improve water allocation and use strategies and salinity mitigation. Read moreRead less
Groundwater flow age distributions: Understanding open pit mine hydrology. This project aims to improve the estimation of the age of groundwater. Understanding groundwater age is critical for sustainable management and environmental tracers are increasingly used for this purpose. However, groundwater samples are inevitably mixtures of water of different ages. Since for most tracers the relationship between tracer concentration and age is not linear, different tracers can produce different mean a ....Groundwater flow age distributions: Understanding open pit mine hydrology. This project aims to improve the estimation of the age of groundwater. Understanding groundwater age is critical for sustainable management and environmental tracers are increasingly used for this purpose. However, groundwater samples are inevitably mixtures of water of different ages. Since for most tracers the relationship between tracer concentration and age is not linear, different tracers can produce different mean ages for the sample. This project aims to determine whether it is possible to determine moments of the groundwater age distributions from measurements made with different environmental tracers. The project also aims to examine whether the degree of heterogeneity within the aquifer can be determined from the disparity between ages obtained with different tracers. This project aims to tackle the largest problem with using groundwater chemistry to estimate water age – that mixing processes in the subsurface are never known. Solving this problem will allow much more accurate estimates of groundwater velocity and aquifer recharge rates. The groundwater industry contributes an estimated $6.8 billion per annum to the Australian economy, and this project will contribute to the sustainable management of the groundwater resource.Read moreRead less
Effect of faults and barriers on groundwater flow and solute transport. This project will address the role of faults and dykes on groundwater flow and solute transport. Faults and dykes can act as barriers to groundwater flow, yet faults can also be conduits for flow through otherwise impermeable layers. Understanding their role is critical to assessing the impacts of mining, unconventional gas and water resource developments. This project expects to develop new methods to quantify groundwater f ....Effect of faults and barriers on groundwater flow and solute transport. This project will address the role of faults and dykes on groundwater flow and solute transport. Faults and dykes can act as barriers to groundwater flow, yet faults can also be conduits for flow through otherwise impermeable layers. Understanding their role is critical to assessing the impacts of mining, unconventional gas and water resource developments. This project expects to develop new methods to quantify groundwater flow through and along faults and dykes by combining geological, hydraulic and geochemical approaches with detailed 3D numerical models. The expected outcome will be an improved understanding of the role of faults and barriers in subsurface hydrology, and an improved ability to model complex groundwater systems.Read moreRead less
Changes of salt dynamics and distribution in coastal marshes. This project aims to determine and quantify key mechanisms underlying salt transport and distribution in coastal salt marshes. Combining field measurements, laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, the proposed research will tackle long-standing questions concerning accumulation of excessive salt in the marsh soil, which imposes significant stress on marsh plants. This project will examine how temporal and spatial salinity va ....Changes of salt dynamics and distribution in coastal marshes. This project aims to determine and quantify key mechanisms underlying salt transport and distribution in coastal salt marshes. Combining field measurements, laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, the proposed research will tackle long-standing questions concerning accumulation of excessive salt in the marsh soil, which imposes significant stress on marsh plants. This project will examine how temporal and spatial salinity variations lead to large density gradients that may trigger unstable pore-water flow and solute transport. The outcomes will advance our understanding of fundamental links between the marsh hydrology and ecology, and improve our scientific basis for evaluating the marsh ecosystem under different stress conditions.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE110100045
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$370,000.00
Summary
A mass spectrometer to analyse carbonate isotope records of Australia's climate, soil and groundwater history. Water is a critical resource in Australia, yet there is a fundamental lack of knowledge about the causes and timing of groundwater recharge in the past. This facility will allow researchers to better understand climate and groundwater interactions through high resolution isotope analysis of deposits, such as cave stalagmites and marine corals.
A new method for identifying actual groundwater contributions to base flow using both stream flow and groundwater head data. Estimating the groundwater contribution to river flow is difficult but critical for managing water resources and protecting stream environments. This project will deliver better methods for estimating these contributions using existing stream flow and groundwater data.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE160100027
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$600,000.00
Summary
Australian National Facility for Noble-Gas Radio-Isotope Measurements. Australian national facility for noble-gas radio-isotope measurements:
This facility is designed to provide researchers with the ability to accurately date water and ice cores using the natural radio-isotopes in the sample. Radiocarbon dating has been a revolutionary tool in providing answers to a range of questions in anthropology, archaeology and the earth sciences. However, radiocarbon dating has a strong limitation in th ....Australian National Facility for Noble-Gas Radio-Isotope Measurements. Australian national facility for noble-gas radio-isotope measurements:
This facility is designed to provide researchers with the ability to accurately date water and ice cores using the natural radio-isotopes in the sample. Radiocarbon dating has been a revolutionary tool in providing answers to a range of questions in anthropology, archaeology and the earth sciences. However, radiocarbon dating has a strong limitation in that it can only date periods from 1000–50 000 years: the use of radioactive noble-gas isotopes can extend this range out to 1 year to 1 million years. This capability in the new facility is expected to support new understanding of processes in artesian reservoirs, ocean currents and geology that may affect questions of water availability, climate and environmental change.Read moreRead less
Climate-related regime shifts in inland semi-arid ecosystems through ecohydrological proxies. This project will investigate the dynamics of climate, especially rainfall, of the northwest of Australia over the last few thousand years. Our findings will increase understanding of climate variability and contribute to sustainable management of water and biodiversity in semi-arid Australia.
Water sensitive mining. The project aims to provide tools that can identify how mining projects, including associated land use and infrastructure, can play a positive role in sustainable water management. This will be based on new knowledge about mine-land-water relationships, novel approaches to modelling mine site hydrology within regional models and greater emphasis on risk evaluation. This work is essential if resource-rich regions in Australia and beyond are to be developed with sustainabil ....Water sensitive mining. The project aims to provide tools that can identify how mining projects, including associated land use and infrastructure, can play a positive role in sustainable water management. This will be based on new knowledge about mine-land-water relationships, novel approaches to modelling mine site hydrology within regional models and greater emphasis on risk evaluation. This work is essential if resource-rich regions in Australia and beyond are to be developed with sustainability as a goal, and for mining to live comfortably alongside other strategically important water and land users. The main outcome aims to be the development of new tools for predicting and optimising the regional water management opportunities provided by mining.Read moreRead less