Diferent approaches to improve groundwater resources management : submarine groundwater discharge and managed aquifer recharge
Global change is expected to affect significantly the global hydrological behavior, changing mean annual precipitation patterns, increasing length of drought periods, rising evaporation and atmospheric water vapor and decreasing ice cover. All these changes imply significant challenges to find solut...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis doctoral |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/369848 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/369848 https://dx.doi.org/10.5821/dissertation-2117-369848 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria civil i ambiental |
| Sumario: | Global change is expected to affect significantly the global hydrological behavior, changing mean annual precipitation patterns, increasing length of drought periods, rising evaporation and atmospheric water vapor and decreasing ice cover. All these changes imply significant challenges to find solutions that could contribute to mitigate the effects of global change in groundwater quality and its effect on the environment. In this context, the application of remote sensing in groundwater studies represent a useful technique to complement the information obtained with the traditional methods in hydrogeological studies used for the characterization and quantification of water resources. In the same way, Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) represents a feasible solution to deal with future water management challenges promoting the storage of available water in aquifers and improving the recharged water quality. The present dissertation is focused on improving groundwater resources management in two different ways. First, by using remote sensing tools for the characterization of coastal areas and second, by using reactive barriers to improve degradation of contaminants of emerging concern in the context of managed aquifer recharge coupled to the outflow of a waste water treatment plant. Firstly, we evaluate the usefulness of using freely available thermal infrared (TIR) imagery of the Landsat 8 as an exploratory tool for identifying SGD springs worldwide. The use of satellite thermal data as a technique for identifying SGD springs in sea water is based on the identification of thermally anomalous plumes obtained from the thermal contrasts between groundwater and sea surface water. The main goal of this first part of the conducted research is to demonstrate the significant usefulness of Landsat 8 TIR images as an exploratory tool for identifying SGD springs (karts areas) worldwide and discuss the main limiting factors of using this technique in SGD studies. Results show that satellite TIR remote sensing is a useful method for identifying coastal springs in karst aquifers both locally and regionally. However, there are some limiting factors that need to be considered as, technical limitations, geological and hydrogeological characteristics of the studied area, environmental and marine conditions, and coastal geomorphology. Secondly, we present the potential use of satellite chlorophyll (Chl-a) data as a low-cost tool for mapping the spatial and temporal evolution of the ecological influence of SGD in coastal habitats. To distinguish high Chl-a concentrations derived from SGD to those derived from other potential sources, a clustered analysis were applied to Landsat 8 satellite Chl-a data. Results show that satellite Chl-a data offers the possibility to identify and constrain areas where SGD inputs have increased primary productivity and calculate the Chl-a concentration gradient along time induced by SGD. Finally, we investigate the fate of selected UV filters (UVFs) in two MAR systems; one supplemented with a reactive barrier containing clay and vegetable compost, and the other as a reference system. We monitor benzophenone-3 (BP-3) and its transformation products (TPs) (benzophenone-1 (BP-1), 4,4'-dihydroxybenzophenone (4-DHB), 4-hydroxybenzophenone (4-HB) and 2,2'-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone (DHMB)), benzophenone-4 (BP-4) and avobenzone (AVO) at all involved compartments (water, soil, and biofilm), before and after modifying redox conditions through a pulse of lithium acetate. Results show that the implementation of a reactive barrier in MAR systems improve substantially the degradation extent of UVF, especially of BP-3 and its TPs. The present dissertation contributes to improve groundwater resources management throughout new methodological and technical approaches to deal with the new challenges of today’s society. |
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