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Abstract: Throughout the Mediterranean, salinization threatens water quality, especially in coastal areas. This salinization is the result of concomitant processes related to both seawater intrusion and water–rock interaction, which in some cases are virtually indistinguishable. In the Nurra region of northwestern Sardinia, recent salinization related to marine water intrusion has been caused by aquifer exploitation. However, the geology of this region records a long history from the Palaeozoic to the Quaternary, and is structurally complex and comprises a wide variety of lithologies, including Triassic evaporites. Determining the origin of the saline component of the Jurassic and Triassic aquifers in the Nurra region may provide a useful and more general model for salinization processes in the Mediterranean area, where the occurrence of evaporitic rocks in coastal aquifers is a common feature. In addition, due to intensive human activity and recent climatic change, the Nurra has become vulnerable to desertification and, in common with other Mediterranean islands, surface water resources periodically suffer from severe shortages. With this in mind, we report new data regarding brackish and surface waters (outcrop and lake samples) of the Na-Cl type from the Nurra region, including major ions and selected trace elements (B, Br, I, and Sr), in addition to isotopic data including δ18O, δD in water, and δ34S and δ18O in dissolved SO4. To identify the origin of the salinity more precisely, we also analysed the mineralogical and isotopic composition of Triassic evaporites. The brackish waters have Cl contents of up to 2025 mg L−1 , and the ratios between dissolved ions and Cl, with the exception of the Br / Cl ratio, are not those expected on the basis of simple mixing between rainwater and seawater. The δ18O and δD data indicate that most of the waters fall between the regional meteoric water line and the global meteoric water line, supporting the conclusion that they are meteoric in origin. A significant consequence of the meteoric origin of the Na-Cl-type water studied here is that the Br / Cl ratio, extensively used to assess the origin of salinity in fresh water, should be used with care in carbonate aquifers that are near the coast. Overall, δ34S and δ18O levels in dissolved SO4 suggest that water–rock interaction is responsible for the Na-Cl brackish composition of the water hosted by the Jurassic and Triassic aquifers of the Nurra, and this is consistent with the geology and lithological features of the study area. Evaporite dissolution may also explain the high Cl content, as halite was detected within the gypsum deposits. Finally, these Na-Cl brackish waters are undersaturated with respect to the more soluble salts, implying that in a climate evolving toward semi-arid conditions, the salinization process could intensify dramatically in the near future.
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Llopis-Albert, C., Merigó, J. M., & Xu, Y. (2016). A coupled stochastic inverse/sharp interface seawater intrusion approach for coastal aquifers under groundwater parameter uncertainty. Journal of Hydrology, 540, 774–783.
Abstract: This paper presents an alternative approach to deal with seawater intrusion problems, that overcomes some of the limitations of previous works, by coupling the well-known SWI2 package for MODFLOW with a stochastic inverse model named GC method. On the one hand, the SWI2 allows a vertically integrated variable-density groundwater flow and seawater intrusion in coastal multi-aquifer systems, and a reduction in number of required model cells and the elimination of the need to solve the advective-dispersive transport equation, which leads to substantial model run-time savings. On the other hand, the GC method allows dealing with groundwater parameter uncertainty by constraining stochastic simulations to flow and mass transport data (i.e., hydraulic conductivity, freshwater heads, saltwater concentrations and travel times) and also to secondary information obtained from expert judgment or geophysical surveys, thus reducing uncertainty and increasing reliability in meeting the environmental standards. The methodology has been successfully applied to a transient movement of the freshwater-seawater interface in response to changing freshwater inflow in a two-aquifer coastal aquifer system, where an uncertainty assessment has been carried out by means of Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The approach also allows partially overcoming the neglected diffusion and dispersion processes after the conditioning process since the uncertainty is reduced and results are closer to available data.
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Sivakumar*, B., Harter, T., & Zhang, H. (2005). A fractal investigation of solute travel time in a heterogeneous aquifer: transition probability/Markov chain representation. Ecol. Modell., 182, 355–370.
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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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Stigter, T. Y., van Ooijen, S. P. J., Post, V. E. A., Appelo, C. A. J., & Carvalho Dill, A. M. M. (1998). A hydrogeological and hydrochemical explanation of the groundwater composition under irrigated land in a Mediterranean environment, Algarve, Portugal. Journal of Hydrology, 208(3), 262–279.
Abstract: In the Campina de Faro, in the south of Portugal, agricultural practices have a large impact on groundwater composition. These practices involve pumping of water for irrigation from combinations of large diameter, shallow wells (noras) and small diameter, deep boreholes (furos). Excess irrigation water returns to the aquifer and mixes with water from the regional groundwater flow system. This irrigation return flow is concentrated by strong evapotranspiration and by flushing of fertilisers. The concentration increase induces cation exchange, whereby Ca on the soil exchanger is replaced by Na. The mixing in the aquifer allows application of a mixing cell model which may then be used to calculate transmissivities from the Cl mass balance. The calculations are complicated by the time-variant behaviour of Cl and the method is adjusted to calculate the change of chloride in time. Results from the calculations appear to be in good agreement with hydrochemical observations.
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