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Population growth and changing climate continue to impact on the availability of natural resources. Urbanization of vulnerable coastal margins can place serious demands on shallow groundwater. Here, groundwater management requires definition of coastal hydrogeology, particularly the seawater interface. Electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) appears to be ideally suited for this purpose. We investigate challenges and drivers for successful electrical resistivity imaging with field and synthetic experiments. Two decades of seawater intrusion monitoring provide a basis for creating a geo-electrical model suitable for demonstrating the significance of acquisition and inversion parameters on resistivity imaging outcomes. A key observation is that resistivity imaging with combinations of electrode arrays that include dipole-dipole quadrupoles can be configured to illuminate consequential elements of coastal hydrogeology. We extend our analysis of ERI to include a diverse set of hydrogeological settings along more than 100 km of the coastal margin passing the city of Perth, Western Australia. Of particular importance are settings with: (1) a classic seawater wedge in an unconfined aquifer, (2) a shallow unconfined aquifer over an impermeable substrate, and (3) a shallow multi-tiered aquifer system over a conductive impermeable substrate. We also demonstrate a systematic increase in the landward extent of the seawater wedge at sites located progressively closer to the highly urbanized center of Perth. Based on field and synthetic ERI experiments from a broad range of hydrogeological settings, we tabulate current challenges and future directions for this technology. Our research contributes to resolving the globally significant challenge of managing seawater intrusion at vulnerable coastal margins.

High quality coastal aquifer systems provide vast quantities of potable groundwater for millions of people worldwide. Managing this setting has economic and environmental consequences. Specific knowledge of the dynamic relationship between fresh terrestrial groundwater discharging to the ocean and seawater intrusion is necessary. We present multi- disciplinary research that assesses the relationships between groundwater throughflow and seawater intrusion. This combines numerical simulation, geophysics, and analysis of more than 30 years of data from a seawater intrusion monitoring site. The monitoring wells are set in a shallow karstic aquifer system located along the southwest coast of Western Australia, where hundreds of gigalitres of fresh groundwater flow into the ocean annually. There is clear evidence for seawater intrusion along this coastal margin. We demonstrate how hydraulic anisotropy will impact on the landward extent of seawater for a given groundwater throughflow. Our examples show how the distance between the ocean and the seawater interface toe can shrink by over 100% after increasing the rotation angle of hydraulic conductivity anisotropy when compared to a homogeneous aquifer. We observe extreme variability in the properties of the shallow aquifer from ground penetrating radar, hand samples, and hydraulic parameters estimated from field measurements. This motived us to complete numerical experiments with sets of spatially correlated random hydraulic conductivity fields, representative of karstic aquifers. The hydraulic conductivity proximal to the zone of submarine groundwater discharge is shown to be significant in determining the overall geometry and landward extent of the seawater interface. Electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) data was acquired and assessed for its ability to recover the seawater interface. Imaging outcomes from field ERI data are compared with simulated ERI outcomes derived from transport modelling with a range of hydraulic conductivity distributions. This process allows for interpretation of the approximate geometry of the seawater interface, however recovery of an accurate resistivity distribution across the wedge and mixing zone remains challenging. We reveal extremes in groundwater velocity, particularly where fresh terrestrial groundwater discharges to the ocean, and across the seawater recirculation cell. An overarching conclusion is that conventional seawater intrusion monitoring wells may not be suitable to constrain numerical simulation of the seawater intrusion. Based on these lessons, we present future options for groundwater monitoring that are specifically designed to quantify the distribution of; (i) high vertical and horizontal pressure gradients, (ii) sharp variations in subsurface flow velocity, (iii) extremes in hydraulic properties, and (iv) rapid changes in groundwater chemistry. These extremes in parameter distribution are common in karstic aquifer systems at the transition from land to ocean. Our research provides new insights into the behaviour of groundwater in dynamic, densely populated, and ecologically sensitive coastal environments found worldwide.

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Groundwater, the most important water resource and the largest distributed store of fresh water in the world, supports sustainability of groundwater-dependent ecosystems and resilient and sustainable economy of the future. However, groundwater level decline in many parts of world has occurred as a result of a combination of climate change, land cover change and groundwater abstraction from aquifers. This study investigates the determination of the contributions of these factors to the groundwater level changes with the HydroSight model. The unconfined superficial aquifer in the Gnangara region in Western Australia was used as a case study. It was found that rainfall dominates long-term (1992–2014) groundwater level changes and the contribution rate of rainfall reduced because the rainfall decreased over time. The mean rainfall contribution rate is 77% for climate and land cover analysis and 90% for climate and pumping analysis. Secondly, the increasing groundwater pumping activities had a significant influence on groundwater level and its mean contribution rate on groundwater level decline is -23%. The land cover changes had limited influence on long-term groundwater level changes and the contribution rate is stable over time with a mean of 2%. Results also showed spatial heterogeneity: the groundwater level changes were mainly influenced by rainfall and groundwater pumping in the southern study region, and the groundwater level changes were influenced by the combination of rainfall, land cover and groundwater pumping in the northern study region. This research will assist in developing a quantitative understanding of the influences of different factors on groundwater level changes in any aquifer in the world.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

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