Guarding the long-term sustainability of groundwater resources by defining aquifer characteristics and inter-aquifer leakage using airborne EM technologies

Abstract

The sustainable extraction of groundwater resources requires an understanding of aquifer integrity, geometry and quality, particularly where it is extracted from confined or multi-layered systems, and where shallow, unconfined aquifers are too saline for use either as a source of potable water or for irrigated agriculture or stock. In such situations, a major threat to the longterm sustainability of a groundwater resources is leakage of saline water from formations that overlie and/or underlie the target aquifers. From a hydrogeological perspective both situations demand information on the spatial variations in groundwater quality and information on surface water-groundwater interactions