Defining and controlling seawater intrusion in threatened coastal aquifers. This project aims to improve knowledge of coastal aquifer processes and management practices in order to increase the security of highly vulnerable freshwater. In particular, it aims to address critical barriers to the regional-scale investigation of coastal aquifers, including island lenses – the most vulnerable freshwater resources on earth. Threats to coastal aquifers are intensifying globally, and key knowledge gaps ....Defining and controlling seawater intrusion in threatened coastal aquifers. This project aims to improve knowledge of coastal aquifer processes and management practices in order to increase the security of highly vulnerable freshwater. In particular, it aims to address critical barriers to the regional-scale investigation of coastal aquifers, including island lenses – the most vulnerable freshwater resources on earth. Threats to coastal aquifers are intensifying globally, and key knowledge gaps prevail in our current understanding and representation of transient, regional-scale seawater intrusion. The project plans to use coastal aquifer case studies from Australia and overseas to evaluate seawater intrusion reversibility, intermittent pumping effects, offshore aquifer processes, and management approaches. The project may improve coastal aquifer practices globally by unravelling the driving forces of transient seawater intrusion and developing new seawater intrusion models.Read moreRead less
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
Ecohydrologic functioning of ephemeral streams. This project aims to increase understanding of how surface-groundwater interactions sustain vegetation associated with ephemeral streams. One of the biggest problems faced by mining and regional development in arid regions is how to protect ecological and heritage values of ephemeral streams by minimising impacts of water abstraction and surplus discharge. The project will use environmental tracers, coupled with assessment of vegetation water use a ....Ecohydrologic functioning of ephemeral streams. This project aims to increase understanding of how surface-groundwater interactions sustain vegetation associated with ephemeral streams. One of the biggest problems faced by mining and regional development in arid regions is how to protect ecological and heritage values of ephemeral streams by minimising impacts of water abstraction and surplus discharge. The project will use environmental tracers, coupled with assessment of vegetation water use and numerical modelling, to assess resilience of ephemeral streams to changes in flows resulting from mining activities and climate-related shifts in recharge. Expected outcomes of the project include providing appropriate context for evaluating and adapting management to conserve scarce water resources. This project should significantly contribute to the sustainable management of both mineral and groundwater resources.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
Sustaining intensive agriculture through droughts and floods. This project aims to develop state-of-the-art conceptual and numerical models of river-soil-groundwater interactions to address complex and persistent questions on water sustainability in the Lower Burdekin Delta, Queensland, where groundwater pumping to irrigate sugarcane has been supplemented by artificial recharge for over 50 years. This project expects to deliver new knowledge of critical aquifer processes to inform the scheme ope ....Sustaining intensive agriculture through droughts and floods. This project aims to develop state-of-the-art conceptual and numerical models of river-soil-groundwater interactions to address complex and persistent questions on water sustainability in the Lower Burdekin Delta, Queensland, where groundwater pumping to irrigate sugarcane has been supplemented by artificial recharge for over 50 years. This project expects to deliver new knowledge of critical aquifer processes to inform the scheme operation, the largest in the country. Expected outcomes include ground-breaking management plans for the aquifer-replenishment scheme. Anticipated benefits involve balancing the needs of agriculture and the protection of pristine environments, including groundwater discharge to the Great Barrier Reef.
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Dynamics and management of riverine freshwater lenses. Rivers are the main source of freshwater for many ecosystems in semi-arid zones. River water may seep into the floodplain aquifer, providing an accessible store of low-salinity water within freshwater lenses. The project aims to investigate lens dynamics using numerical groundwater models supported by extensive field data from the lower River Murray, where freshwater lenses are declining. The project aims to model lens extent, growth and dec ....Dynamics and management of riverine freshwater lenses. Rivers are the main source of freshwater for many ecosystems in semi-arid zones. River water may seep into the floodplain aquifer, providing an accessible store of low-salinity water within freshwater lenses. The project aims to investigate lens dynamics using numerical groundwater models supported by extensive field data from the lower River Murray, where freshwater lenses are declining. The project aims to model lens extent, growth and decline in response to natural variations in climate and to changes in land use, river regulation and groundwater pumping. Project results intend to evaluate management options to promote freshwater lenses, with the aim of improving river salinity and floodplain vegetation health.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100302
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$357,170.00
Summary
Predicting groundwater replenishment in arid catchments. Australia is the world's driest continent, and reliant on groundwater for survival and livelihood. A clear understanding of how our groundwater is replenished is therefore imperative. Groundwater recharge is difficult to quantify because it occurs as infiltration beneath streambeds in response to rain events. This project aims to combine field data from fibre optic temperature sensing, radio-isotopes, and remote sensing into streamflow and ....Predicting groundwater replenishment in arid catchments. Australia is the world's driest continent, and reliant on groundwater for survival and livelihood. A clear understanding of how our groundwater is replenished is therefore imperative. Groundwater recharge is difficult to quantify because it occurs as infiltration beneath streambeds in response to rain events. This project aims to combine field data from fibre optic temperature sensing, radio-isotopes, and remote sensing into streamflow and catchment scale models to characterise connections between infiltration and recharge in an Australian catchment. The project aims to produce easily applicable tools to predict aquifer replenishment after storm events and predictions of groundwater availability under future climate conditions.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
Hydrogeological drivers and fate of spring flow in a semi-arid setting. In arid and semi-arid climates, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems often rely on groundwater springs. Spring hydrology depends on complex relationships between underlying aquifers and surface conditions, leading to high uncertainties in understanding aquifer-spring-wetland hydrology, which is critical for spring ecosystem protection and to inform management of relevant groundwater-affecting activities. This project will appl ....Hydrogeological drivers and fate of spring flow in a semi-arid setting. In arid and semi-arid climates, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems often rely on groundwater springs. Spring hydrology depends on complex relationships between underlying aquifers and surface conditions, leading to high uncertainties in understanding aquifer-spring-wetland hydrology, which is critical for spring ecosystem protection and to inform management of relevant groundwater-affecting activities. This project will apply novel hydrogeophysical and hydrochemical methods, and computer modelling, to investigate the source aquifer of, and fate of discharge from the Doongmabulla Springs Complex (DSC), located in an area of future development. Project results will inform spring vulnerability to development pressures and climate effects.Read moreRead less