Saline groundwater - surface water interaction in coastal lowlands

Stuijfzand, P.J. [Promotor]Oude Essink, G.P.H. [Copromotor]Groen, J. [Copromotor

Regioscan Zoetwatermaatregelen : beperken watervraag landbouw door kleinschalige maatregelen

Omdat zoetwatertekorten steeds talrijker worden, zoeken waterbeheerders met landbouwers naar manieren om de vraag te verminderen. Onbekend is in hoeverre kleinschalige maatregelen kunnen bijdragen aan de regionale zoetwateropgave en tegen welke kosten. De Regioscan Zoetwatermaatregelen geeft ruimtelijk inzicht in de rendabiliteit van maatregelen voor agrariërs, en effecten op gebiedsniveau. Het instrument ondersteunt hiermee de dialoog tussen waterbeheerder en boer. Vooralsnog lijken baten van kleinschalige zoetwatermaatregelen alleen in specifieke gebieden op te wegen tegen de kosten

Investigating summer flow paths in a Dutch agricultural field using high frequency direct measurements

The search for management strategies to cope with projected water scarcity and water quality deterioration calls for a better understanding of the complex interaction between groundwater and surface water in agricultural catchments. We separately measured flow routes to tile drains and an agricultural ditch in a deep polder in the coastal region of the Netherlands, characterized by exfiltration of brackish regional groundwater flow and intake of diverted river water for irrigation and water quality improvement purposes. We simultaneously measured discharge, electrical conductivity and temperature of these separate flow routes at hourly frequencies, disclosing the complex and time-varying patterns and origins of tile drain and ditch exfiltration. Tile drainage could be characterized as a shallow flow system, showing a non-linear response to groundwater level changes. Tile drainage was fed primarily by meteoric water, but still transported the majority (80%) of groundwater-derived salt to surface water. In contrast, deep brackish groundwater exfiltrating directly in the ditch responded linearly to groundwater level variations and is part of a regional groundwater flow system. We could explain the observed salinity of exfiltrating drain and ditch water from the interaction between the fast-responding pressure distribution in the subsurface that determined groundwater flow paths (wave celerity), and the slow-responding groundwater salinity distribution (water velocity). We found water demand for maintaining water levels and diluting salinity through flushing to greatly exceed the actual sprinkling demand. Counterintuitively, flushing demand was found to be largest during precipitation events, suggesting the possibility of water savings by operational flushing control

Palaeo-modeling of coastal salt water intrusion during the Holocene: an application to the Netherlands

Coastal groundwater reserves often reflect a complex evolution of marine transgressions and regressions, and are only rarely in equilibrium with current boundary conditions. Understanding and managing the present-day distribution and future development of these reserves and their hydrochemical characteristics therefore requires insight into their complex evolution history. In this paper, we construct a paleo-hydrogeological model, together with groundwater age and origin calculations, to simulate, study and evaluate the evolution of groundwater salinity in the coastal area of the Netherlands throughout the last 8.5 kyr of the Holocene. While intended as a conceptual tool, confidence in our model results is warranted by a good correspondence with a hydrochemical characterization of groundwater origin. Throughout the modeled period, coastal groundwater distribution never reached equilibrium with contemporaneous boundary conditions. This result highlights the importance of historically changing boundary conditions in shaping the present-day distribution of groundwater and its chemical composition. As such, it acts as a warning against the common use of a steady-state situation given present-day boundary conditions to initialize groundwater transport modeling in complex coastal aquifers or, more general, against explaining existing groundwater composition patterns from the currently existing flow situation. The importance of historical boundary conditions not only holds true for the effects of the large-scale marine transgression around 5 kyr BC that thoroughly reworked groundwater composition, but also for the more local effects of a temporary gaining river system still recognizable today. Model results further attest to the impact of groundwater density differences on coastal groundwater flow on millennial timescales and highlight their importance in shaping today's groundwater salinity distribution. We found free convection to drive large-scale fingered infiltration of seawater to depths of 200 m within decades after a marine transgression, displacing the originally present groundwater upwards. Subsequent infiltration of fresh meteoric water was, in contrast, hampered by the existing density gradient. We observed discontinuous aquitards to exert a significant control on infiltration patterns and the resulting evolution of groundwater salinity. Finally, adding to a long-term scientific debate on the origins of groundwater salinity in Dutch coastal aquifers, our modeling results suggest a more significant role of pre-Holocene groundwater in the present-day groundwater salinity distribution in the Netherlands than previously recognized. Though conceptual, comprehensively modeling the Holocene evolution of groundwater salinity, age and origin offered a unique view on the complex processes shaping groundwater in coastal aquifers over millennial timescales

Het langetermijngeheugen van de zoet-zoutverdeling

Dit artikel beschrijft de ontwikkeling van de zoetzoutverdeling in het Nederlandse grondwater. Deze verdeling is sterk bepaald door de paleogeografische ontwikkeling gedurende het Holoceen en kent een groot langetermijngeheugen. Er worden twee typen grondwatersystemen beschreven: het West-Nederland systeem, waar autonome verzilting en wellen sleutelbegrippen zijn, en het Zeeuwse systeem, waar drie typen zoetwaterlenzen worden besproken. We laten aan de hand van de FRESHEM-Zeeland-resultaten zien dat airborne-elektromagnetische meettechnieken zeer geschikt zijn voor het in beeld brengen van de zoet-zoutverdeling. Vervolgens wordt ingegaan op het modelleren van de initiële zoet-zoutverdeling, waarbij de combinatie van paleomodellering en gebruik van metingen een geschikte methode lijkt. De initiële zoet-zoutverdeling is een belangrijke modelparameter bij het voorspellen van toekomstige veranderingen van zoete grondwatervoorraden als gevolg van ingrepen, klimaatverandering en zeespiegelstijging

Het langetermijngeheugen van de zoet-zoutverdeling

Dit artikel beschrijft de ontwikkeling van de zoetzoutverdeling in het Nederlandse grondwater. Deze verdeling is sterk bepaald door de paleogeografische ontwikkeling gedurende het Holoceen en kent een groot langetermijngeheugen. Er worden twee typen grondwatersystemen beschreven: het West-Nederland systeem, waar autonome verzilting en wellen sleutelbegrippen zijn, en het Zeeuwse systeem, waar drie typen zoetwaterlenzen worden besproken. We laten aan de hand van de FRESHEM-Zeeland-resultaten zien dat airborne-elektromagnetische meettechnieken zeer geschikt zijn voor het in beeld brengen van de zoet-zoutverdeling. Vervolgens wordt ingegaan op het modelleren van de initiële zoet-zoutverdeling, waarbij de combinatie van paleomodellering en gebruik van metingen een geschikte methode lijkt. De initiële zoet-zoutverdeling is een belangrijke modelparameter bij het voorspellen van toekomstige veranderingen van zoete grondwatervoorraden als gevolg van ingrepen, klimaatverandering en zeespiegelstijging

Low-resolution modeling of dense drainage networks in confining layers

Groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interaction in numerical groundwater flow models is generally simulated using a Cauchy boundary condition, which relates the flow between the surface water and the groundwater to the product of the head difference between the node and the surface water level, and a coefficient, often referred to as the “conductance.” Previous studies have shown that in models with a low grid resolution, the resistance to GW-SW interaction below the surface water bed should often be accounted for in the parameterization of the conductance, in addition to the resistance across the surface water bed. Three conductance expressions that take this resistance into account were investigated: two that were presented by Mehl and Hill (2010) and the one that was presented by De Lange (1999). Their accuracy in low-resolution models regarding salt and water fluxes to a dense drainage network in a confined aquifer system was determined. For a wide range of hydrogeological conditions, the influence of (1) variable groundwater density; (2) vertical grid discretization; and (3) simulation of both ditches and tile drains in a single model cell was investigated. The results indicate that the conductance expression of De Lange (1999) should be used in similar hydrogeological conditions as considered in this paper, as it is better taking into account the resistance to flow below the surface water bed. For the cases that were considered, the influence of variable groundwater density and vertical grid discretization on the accuracy of the conductance expression of De Lange (1999) is small

Low-resolution modeling of dense drainage networks in confining layers

Groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interaction in numerical groundwater flow models is generally simulated using a Cauchy boundary condition, which relates the flow between the surface water and the groundwater to the product of the head difference between the node and the surface water level, and a coefficient, often referred to as the “conductance.” Previous studies have shown that in models with a low grid resolution, the resistance to GW-SW interaction below the surface water bed should often be accounted for in the parameterization of the conductance, in addition to the resistance across the surface water bed. Three conductance expressions that take this resistance into account were investigated: two that were presented by Mehl and Hill (2010) and the one that was presented by De Lange (1999). Their accuracy in low-resolution models regarding salt and water fluxes to a dense drainage network in a confined aquifer system was determined. For a wide range of hydrogeological conditions, the influence of (1) variable groundwater density; (2) vertical grid discretization; and (3) simulation of both ditches and tile drains in a single model cell was investigated. The results indicate that the conductance expression of De Lange (1999) should be used in similar hydrogeological conditions as considered in this paper, as it is better taking into account the resistance to flow below the surface water bed. For the cases that were considered, the influence of variable groundwater density and vertical grid discretization on the accuracy of the conductance expression of De Lange (1999) is small