[1] Groundwater pumping has caused excessive groundwater depletion around the world, yet regulating pumping remains a profound challenge. California uses more groundwater than any other U.S. state, and serves as a microcosm of the adverse effects of pumping felt worldwide—land subsidence, impaired water quality, and damaged ecosystems, all against the looming threat of climate change. The state...

Disposal of saline drainage water is a significant problem for irrigated agriculture. One proposal is to recycle drainage water to irrigate salt tolerant crops until the volume has been reduced sufficiently to enable final disposal by evaporation. Part of this concept requires in-situ crop water use from shallow groundwater; and data is needed to quantify the potential use of groundwater by alt...

Although changes in depth to groundwater occur naturally, anthropogenic alterations may exacerbate these fluctuations and, thus, affect vegetation reliant on groundwater. These effects include changes in physiology, structure, and community dynamics, particularly in arid regions where groundwater can be an important water source for many plants. To properly manage ecosystems subject to changes ...

An operational method to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with groundwater use is currently lacking in life cycle assessment (LCA). This paper outlines a method to calculate characterization factors that address the effects of groundwater extraction on the species richness of terrestrial vegetation. Characterization factors (CF) were derived for The Netherlands and consist of a fat...

The accurate and reliable prediction of groundwater depth is the basis of the sustainable utilization of regional groundwater resources. However, the complexity of the prediction has been ignored in previous studies of regional groundwater depth system analysis and prediction, making it difficult to realize the scientific management of groundwater resources. To address this defect, taking compl...

Characterization of groundwater quality allows the evaluation of groundwater pollution and provides information for better management of groundwater resources. This study characterized the shallow groundwater quality and its spatial and seasonal variations in the Lower St. Johns River Basin, Florida, USA, under agricultural, forest, wastewater, and residential land uses using field measurements...

Groundwater arsenic (As) presents a public health risk of great magnitude in densely populated Asian delta regions, most acutely in the Bengal Basin (West Bengal, India and Bangladesh). Research has focussed on the sources, mobilization, and heterogeneity of groundwater As, but a consistent explanation of As distribution from local to basin scale remains elusive. We show for the Bengal Aquifer ...

Application of over-winter green cover (e.g. cover crops) as a measure for reducing nitrate losses from tillage land has been frequently investigated, especially in the unsaturated zone. Monitoring of groundwater is less common in these studies. Studies on groundwater responses to different land treatments can be challenging because they can be influenced by various conditions, such as recharge...

We present an approach for identifying groundwater discharge chemistry and quantifying spatially distributed groundwater discharge into rivers based on longitudinal synoptic sampling and flow gauging of a river. The method is demonstrated using a 450 km reach of a tropical river in Australia. Results obtained from sampling for environmental tracers, major ions, and selected trace element chemis...

[1] In the present paper it is shown how profiles consisting of closely spaced ( 10 m) temperature measurements at shallow depth, obtained at several instances during one season, provide a detailed record of lateral variations in vertical groundwater flow. This is illustrated by a field study around the Peel Boundary Fault zone that cuts through the unconsolidated, siliciclastic deposits that o...