Groundwater recharge

Water balance

Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the vadose zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Groundwater recharge also encompasses water moving away from the water table farther into the saturated zone. Recharge occurs both naturally (through the water cycle) and through anthropogenic processes (i.e., "artificial groundwater recharge"), where rainwater and or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface.

The most common methods to estimate recharge rates are: chloride mass balance (CMB); soil physics methods; environmental and isotopic tracers; groundwater-level fluctuation methods; water balance (WB) methods (including groundwater models (GMs)); and the estimation of baseflow (BF) to rivers.

Processes

Natural recharge

Water is recharged naturally by rain and snow melt and to a smaller extent by surface water (rivers and lakes). Recharge may be impeded somewhat by human activities including paving, development, or logging. These activities can result in loss of topsoil resulting in reduced water infiltration, enhanced surface runoff and reduction in recharge. Use of groundwater, especially for irrigation, may also lower the water tables. Groundwater recharge is an important process for sustainable groundwater management, since the volume-rate abstracted from an aquifer in the long term should be less than or equal to the volume-rate that is recharged.

Recharge can help move excess salts that accumulate in the root zone to deeper soil layers, or into the groundwater system. Tree roots increase water saturation into groundwater reducing water runoff. Flooding temporarily increases river bed permeability by moving clay soils downstream, and this increases aquifer recharge.

Wetlands

Wetlands help maintain the level of the water table and exert control on the hydraulic head. This provides force for groundwater recharge and discharge to other waters as well. The extent of groundwater recharge by a wetland is dependent upon soil, vegetation, site, perimeter to volume ratio, and water table gradient. Groundwater recharge occurs through mineral soils found primarily around the edges of wetlands. The soil under most wetlands is relatively impermeable. A high perimeter to volume ratio, such as in small wetlands, means that the surface area through which water can infiltrate into the groundwater is high. Groundwater recharge is typical in small wetlands such as prairie potholes, which can contribute significantly to recharge of regional groundwater resources. Researchers have discovered groundwater recharge of up to 20% of wetland volume per season.

Artificial groundwater recharge

Artificial groundwater recharge is becoming increasingly important in India, where over-pumping of groundwater by farmers has led to underground resources becoming depleted. In 2007, on the recommendations of the International Water Management Institute, the Indian government allocated ₹1,800 crore (equivalent to ₹54 billion or US$650 million in 2023) to fund dug-well recharge projects (a dug-well is a wide, shallow well, often lined with concrete) in 100 districts within seven states where water stored in hard-rock aquifers had been over-exploited. Another environmental issue is the disposal of waste through the water flux such as dairy farms, industrial, and urban runoff.

Pollution in stormwater run-off collects in retention basins. Concentrating degradable contaminants can accelerate biodegradation. However, where and when water tables are high this affects appropriate design of detention ponds, retention ponds and rain gardens.

Depression-focused recharge

If water falls uniformly over a field such that field capacity of the soil is not exceeded, then negligible water percolates to groundwater. If instead water puddles in low-lying areas, the same water volume concentrated over a smaller area may exceed field capacity resulting in water that percolates down to recharge groundwater. The larger the relative contributing runoff area is, the more focused infiltration is. The recurring process of water that falls relatively uniformly over an area, flowing to groundwater selectively under surface depressions is depression focused recharge. Water tables rise under such depressions.

Depression focused groundwater recharge can be very important in arid regions. More rain events are capable of contributing to groundwater supply.

Depression focused groundwater recharge also profoundly effects contaminant transport into groundwater. This is of great concern in regions with karst geological formations because water can eventually dissolve tunnels all the way to aquifers, or otherwise disconnected streams. This extreme form of preferential flow, accelerates the transport of contaminants and the erosion of such tunnels. In this way depressions intended to trap runoff water—before it flows to vulnerable water resources—can connect underground over time. Cavitation of surfaces above into the tunnels, results in potholes or caves.

Deeper ponding exerts pressure that forces water into the ground faster. Faster flow dislodges contaminants otherwise adsorbed on soil and carries them along. This can carry pollution directly to the raised water table below and into the groundwater supply. Thus the quality of water collecting in infiltration basins is of special concern.

Estimation methods

Rates of groundwater recharge are difficult to quantify. This is because other related processes, such as evaporation, transpiration (or evapotranspiration) and infiltration processes must first be measured or estimated to determine the balance. There are no widely applicable method available that can directly and accurately quantify the volume of rainwater that reaches the water table.

The most common methods to estimate recharge rates are: chloride mass balance (CMB); soil physics methods; environmental and isotopic tracers; groundwater-level fluctuation methods; water balance (WB) methods (including groundwater models (GMs)); and the estimation of baseflow (BF) to rivers.

Regional, continental and global estimates of recharge commonly derive from global hydrological models.

Physical

Physical methods use the principles of soil physics to estimate recharge. The direct physical methods are those that attempt to actually measure the volume of water passing below the root zone. Indirect physical methods rely on the measurement or estimation of soil physical parameters, which along with soil physical principles, can be used to estimate the potential or actual recharge. After months without rain the level of the rivers under humid climate is low and represents solely drained groundwater. Thus, the recharge can be calculated from this base flow if the catchment area is already known.

Chemical

Chemical methods use the presence of relatively inert water-soluble substances, such as an isotopic tracer or chloride, moving through the soil, as deep drainage occurs.

Numerical models

Recharge can be estimated using numerical methods, using such codes as Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance, UNSAT-H, SHAW, WEAP, and MIKE SHE. The 1D-program HYDRUS1D is available online. The codes generally use climate and soil data to arrive at a recharge estimate and use the Richards equation in some form to model groundwater flow in the vadose zone.

Factors affecting groundwater recharge

Climate change

See also: Effects of climate change on the water cycle

Natural processes of groundwater recharge. Adjustments affecting the water table will drastically enhance or diminish the quality of groundwater recharge in a specific region.

Climate change will impact on the availability of groundwater recharge in drainage basins. Groundwater recharge rates are different for moist, medium, and arid climates. Climate models project a series of various rainfall patterns. It is predicted that groundwater recharge rates will have the smallest impact on a climate of equal humidity and dryness.

Different mechanisms of groundwater recharge have different sensitivities in response to climate change. Increasing global temperatures generate more arid climates in some regions, and this can lead to excessive pumping of the water table. When rates of pumping are greater than the rate of groundwater recharge, there is an enhanced risk of overdrafting and hence lowering of the water table. This means deeper drilling would be required to access the groundwater.

Urbanization

Further implications of groundwater recharge are a consequence of urbanization. Research shows that the recharge rate can be up to ten times higher in urban areas compared to rural regions. This is explained through the vast water supply and sewage networks supported in urban regions in which rural areas are not likely to obtain. Recharge in rural areas is heavily supported by precipitation and this is opposite for urban areas. Road networks and infrastructure within cities prevents surface water from percolating into the soil, resulting in most surface runoff entering storm drains for local water supply. As urban development continues to spread across various regions, rates of groundwater recharge will increase relative to the existing rates of the previous rural region. A consequence of sudden influxes in groundwater recharge includes flash flooding. The ecosystem will have to adjust to the elevated groundwater surplus due to groundwater recharge rates. Additionally, road networks are less permeable compared to soil, resulting in higher amounts of surface runoff. Therefore, urbanization increases the rate of groundwater recharge and reduces infiltration, resulting in flash floods as the local ecosystem accommodates changes to the surrounding environment.

Adverse factors

• Drainage
• Impervious surfaces
• Soil compaction
• Groundwater pollution

See also

• Aquifer storage and recovery
• Contour trenching
• Depression focused recharge
• Dry well
• Groundwater model
• Groundwater remediation
• Hydrology (agriculture)
• Infiltration (hydrology)
• International trade and water
• Peak water
• Rainwater harvesting
• Soil salinity control by subsurface drainage
• Subsurface dyke
• Watertable control

References

• Allison, G.B.; Gee, G.W.; Tyler, S.W. (1994). "Vadose-zone techniques for estimating groundwater recharge in arid and semiarid regions". Soil Science Society of America Journal. 58 (1): 6–14. Bibcode:1994SSASJ..58....6A. doi:10.2136/sssaj1994.03615995005800010002x. OSTI 7113326.
• Bond, W.J. (1998). Soil Physical Methods for Estimating Recharge. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing.

Further reading

• LaMoreaux, Philip E.; Tanner, Judy T, eds. (2001). Springs and bottled water of the world: Ancient history, source, occurrence, quality and use. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-61841-4. Retrieved 13 July 2010. Provides a good overview of hydrogeological processes, including groundwater recharge.
• Pierre D. Glynn & L. Niel Plummer (March 2005). "Geochemistry and the understanding of ground-water systems". Hydrogeology Journal. 13 (1): 263–287. Bibcode:2005HydJ...13..263G. doi:10.1007/s10040-004-0429-y. S2CID 129716764.