Aquifer Storage and Recovery: Can an Updated Inventory Predict Future System Success?

Aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR, is used to provide a stored water source where water supplies are unreliable or to address future demand. A 2013 inventory of ASR systems was updated in 2019 to evaluate project parameters and determine which variables are best at predicting the success of future ASR projects. With a time frame of June 2013 through October 2019, the revised inventory and analysis included data on new ASR sites and existing sites whose status had changed

Assessment of Aquifer Storage and Recovery Feasibility Using Numerical Modeling and Geospatial Analysis: Application in Louisiana

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is a solution for regions experiencing groundwater shortages, but is unexplored in wet regions such as Louisiana, which is experiencing aquifer overdrafting at alarming rates. Surface storage reservoirs are infeasible in these low-gradient environments, so ASR can provide an alternative to alleviate groundwater stress and prevent subsidence and saltwater intrusion. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of ASR in the Chicot Aquifer in Southwest Louisiana. The study is based on a regional groundwater model combined with a geospatial analysis of the quantity and quality of surface water and groundwater resources and land use. A statistical distribution was used to rate each criterion and combine them into a suitability index (SI) that defines each watershed’s feasibility considering combinations of criteria determined by the user’s purpose for ASR and the availability of data. The SI was formulated as a hybrid additive-multiplicative function to provide flexibility in specifying criteria that are deemed most constraining for ASR feasibility. The analysis identified the east-central zone of the Chicot Aquifer, which is experiencing substantial groundwater stress from agricultural irrigation, as most suited for ASR operations. Besides the criteria on water availability and aquifer characteristics, the quality of the surface water and land-use considerations were key factors in constraining the feasible watersheds

Metaphors and Models: The ASR Bubble in the Floridan Aquifer

Studies at the intersection of cognitive science and linguistics have revealed the crucial role that metaphors play in shaping our thoughts about phenomena we cannot see. According to the domains interaction theory of cognition, a metaphoric expression sets up mappings between a target domain that we wish to understand and a familiar source domain. The source domain contains elements (“commonplaces”) that we manipulate mentally, like parts of an analogue model, to illuminate the target domain. This paper applies the structure of domains interaction theory to analyze the dynamics of a metaphor in hydrogeology: the so-called bubble formed by water injected into an aquifer during aquifer storage and recovery (ASR). Of the four commonplaces of bubbles—(1) they are discrete; (2) they are geometrically simple; (3) they rise; and (4) they burst—we focus on the first two using both displacement and dispersion (tracer) models for both homogeneous and heterogeneous storage zones patterned from geological studies of the Suwannee Limestone of Sarasota County, Florida. The displacement model easily shows that “bottle brush” better represents the geometric complexity predicted from the known and inferred heterogeneity. There is virtually no difference, however, in the prediction of recovery efficiency using the dispersion model for a bubble (homogeneous flow zone) vs. bottle brush (heterogeneous flow zone). On the other hand, only the bottle brush reveals that unrecovered tracer is located preferentially in the low-permeability layers that lie adjacent to high-permeability channels in the flow zones