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Di Lorenzo, T., & Galassi, D. M. P. (2013). Agricultural impact on Mediterranean alluvial aquifers: do groundwater communities respond? Fundamental and Applied Limnology/Archiv für Hydrobiologie, 182(4), 271–282.
Abstract: In Mediterranean countries agricultural development heavily depends on groundwater availability due
to arid and semi-arid climate and poor surface-water resources. Agriculture represents one of the most relevant
pressures which generate impacts in alluvial aquifers by means of fertilizers and pesticides usage and groundwater
overexploitation. Until now, very few studies have addressed the ecological response of groundwater fauna to
groundwater contamination and overexploitation due to agricultural practices. We investigated a Mediterranean
alluvial aquifer heavily affected by nitrates contamination and groundwater abstraction stress due to crop irrigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity of groundwater communities to (a) groundwater nitrate
contamination, (b) groundwater abstraction due to irrigation practices, and (c) saltwater intrusion. The present
work suggests that nitrate concentration lower than 150 mg l
–1 is not an immediate threat to groundwater biodiversity in alluvial aquifers. This conclusion must be carefully considered in the light of the total lack of knowledge
of the effects of long-term nitrate pollution on the groundwater biota. Moreover, local extinctions of less tolerant
species, prior to monitoring, cannot be ruled out. Conversely, species abundances in ground water are affected by
groundwater withdrawal, but species richness may be less sensitive. This result is attributable to the disappearance
of saturated microhabitats and to the depletion of fine unconsolidated sediments, reducing the surface available
to bacterial biofilm, which represent the trophic resource for several groundwater invertebrates and where the
main aquifer self-purification processes, such as denitrification, take place. Saltwater intrusion seems not to affect
groundwater species at the values measured in this coastal aquifer.
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El Mandour, A., El Yaouti, F., Fakir, Y., Zarhloule, Y., & Benavente, J. (2007). Evolution of groundwater salinity in the unconfined aquifer of Bou-Areg, Northeastern Mediterranean coast, Morocco. Environmental Geology, 54(3), 491–503.
Abstract: The Bou-Areg plain in the Mediterranean coast at the North-eastern of Morocco is characterized by a semiarid climate. The aquifer consists of two sedimentary formations of Plio-quaternary age: the upper formation of fine silts and the lower one of coarse silts with sand and gravels. The aquifer is underlain by marly bedrock of Miocene age that dips toward the coastal lagoon of Bou-Areg. The
hydrodynamic characteristics vary between 10–4 and 10–3 m/s; and transmissivities range between 10–4 and 10–1 m2 /s. The general direction of flow is SW to NE, toward the lagoon. The aquifer is crossed by the river Selouane, which also ends in the lagoon. The groundwater is characterized by a high salinity that can reach 7.5 g/l. The highest values are observed in the upstream and in the downstream sectors of the aquifer. The temporal evolution of the physicochemical parameters depends on the climatic conditions and
piezometric variations. The analysis of the spatio-temporal distribution of the physico-chemical parameters suggests different sources of groundwater salinization: the seawater intrusion, the influence of marly gypsum-bearing terrains, and the influence of anthropogenic products as the agricultural fertilizers, which cause great nitrate concentrations that vary between 80 and 140 mg/l.
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Siarkos, I., & Latinopoulos, P. (2016). Modeling seawater intrusion in overexploited aquifers in the absence of sufficient data: application to the aquifer of Nea Moudania, northern Greece. Hydrogeology J., 24, 2123–2141.
Abstract: In many coastal areas, overexploitation of groundwater resources has led both to the quantitative degradation of local aquifers and the deterioration of groundwater quality due to seawater intrusion. To investigate the behavior of coastal aquifers under these conditions, numerical modeling is usually implemented; however, the proper implementation of numerical models requires a large amount of data, which are often not available due to the time-consuming and costly process of obtaining them. In the present study, the investigation of the behavior of coastal aquifers under the lack of adequate data is
attempted by developing a methodological framework consisting of a series of numerical simulations: a steady-state, a false-transient and a transient simulation. The sequence and the connection between these simulations constitute the backbone of the whole procedure aimed at adjusting the various
model parameters, as well as obtaining the initial conditions for the transient simulation. The validity of the proposed methodology is tested through evaluation of the model calibration procedure and the estimation of the simulation errors (mean error, mean absolute error, root mean square error, mean relative error) using the case of Nea Moudania basin, northern Greece. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is performed in order to minimize the error estimates and thus to maximize the reliability of the models. The results of the whole procedure affirm the proper implementation of the developed methodology under specific conditions and assumptions due to the lack of sufficient data, while they give a clear picture of the aquifer’s quantitative and qualitative status.
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Zhao, Q., Su, X., Kang, B., Zhang, Y., Wu, X., & Liu, M. (2017). A hydrogeochemistry and multi-isotope (Sr, O, H, and C) study of groundwater salinity origin and hydrogeochemcial processes in the shallow confined aquifer of northern Yangtze River downstream coastal plain, China. Applied Geochemistry, 86, 49–58.
Abstract: Economically developed coastal areas have a high water demand, and their groundwater resources can be threatened by salinization. Many methods and tracers have been used to discriminate the source of salinization because a single method does not yield reliable results. In this paper, the shallow confined coastal plain aquifer, north of the downstream Yangtze River in China, is used as a case study to investigate the origin of the salinity and the relevant geochemical processes for this aquifer. Multiple environmental tracers of major ions, minor ions (Br−, I−), and isotopes (18O, 2H, 13C, 87Sr, 3H, 14C) were used so as to provide reliable conclusions. The TDS distribution of the aquifer has an increasing trend, from below 500 mg/L in the inland areas to more than 20,000 mg/L around the southeast coastline. The water chemical type evolves from HCO3-Ca to Cl-Na as the TDS increases. The results suggest that the groundwater salinity is influenced by seawater intrusion. The seawater proportions in the groundwater samples range from 0.07% to 94.41% and show the same spatial distribution pattern as TDS. The 3H and 14C values show that the highest salinity was mainly caused by a seawater transgression around 6000a B.P. The aquifer is also affected by other hydrogeochemical processes: base exchange has enriched Ca2+ and depleted K+ and Na+, sulfate reduction has reduced the concentration of SO42− and enriched HCO3−, and iodine-rich organic matter decomposition has enriched the concentration of I−. The iodine enrichment also suggests paleo-seawater intrusion. In addition, the precipitation of carbonate minerals has decreased the concentration of Ca2+, Mg2+, and HCO3−, albeit to a limited extent.
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Cary, L., Petelet-Giraud, E., Bertrand, G., Kloppmann, W., Aquilina, L., Martins, V., et al. (2015). Origins and processes of groundwater salinization in the urban coastal aquifers of Recife (Pernambuco, Brazil): a multi-isotope approach. Science of the Total Environment, 530-531, 411–429.
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