Aquifer and watercourse interaction in the Murray Darling Basin elucidated using electrical conductivity imaging

Abstract

Imaging of groundwater that interacts with surface watercourses is essential for providing detail needed to accurately manage both resources. It is particularly important where one resource is saline or otherwise polluted, where spatial quantification of the interacting resources is critical to water use planning and where losses from surface waterways need to be minimized in order to transport water long distances. Geo-electric arrays or transient electromagnetic devices can be towed along watercourses to image electrical conductivity (EC) at multiple depths within and beneath those watercourses. It has been found that in such environments, EC is typically related primarily to groundwater salinity and secondarily to clay content. Submerged geo-electric arrays can detect detailed canal-bottom variations if correctly designed. Floating arrays pass obstacles easily and are good for surveying constricted rivers and canals. Transient electromagnetic devices detect saline features clearly but have inferior ability to detect fine changes just below beds of watercourses. All require that water depth be measured by sonar or pressure sensors for successful elimination of effects of the water layer on the data. Presentation of the data using a 3D presentation technique where EC is imaged along vertical ribbons drawn along the watercourses is almost essential for handling the data produced because the meandering paths of rivers and canals combined with the shear volume of data typically acquired results in a geo-referencing dilemma that cannot be accommodated using traditional presentation techniques. An extensive set of EC Imaging case studies, distributed across canals and rivers of the Australian Murray-Darling Basin, has been collected. They reveal the interaction of various rivers and canals with the underlying groundwater resources. At some sites, watercourses cross prior river channel sands that are being recharged and are suitable for use as water storages with low evaporation losses. Geophysical imagery can be used to optimize recharge and design of such underground storages. At some other sites, little connection between aquifers and surface watercourses is evident. Finally, at downstream ends of geological basins, sites where saline groundwater flows into, or is on the verge of flowing into rivers are evident.