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Monitoring of seawater intrusion is extremely important for the management of coastal aquifers, and therefore requires reliable and high-frequency monitoring tools. This paper describes the use of a new near field and downhole geophysical tool that monitors seawater intrusion in boreholes with high vertical resolution. This sensor is further used to study the impact of pumping on water electrical conductivity profiles (ECP) at the fresh-saline water interface. The new device was installed in a confined calcareous sandstone aquifer along the northern Israeli coast. The site includes two monitoring wells and one pumping well located at distances of 50, 75 and 125 m from shoreline, respectively. The new geophysical tool, called the subsurface monitoring device (SMD), was examined and compared to water an electric conductivity profiler (ECP) and a conductivity temperature depth (CTD) driver’s data. All methods show similar salinity trends, and changes in pumping regime were clearly identified with both the SMD and CTD. The advantage of using the SMD tool is the high temporal and spatial resolution measurement, which is transferred via internet and can be analyzed and interpreted in real time. Another advantage of the SMD is that it measures the electrical resistivity of the aquifer mostly outside the well, while both water ECP and the CTD measure in-well electrical conductivity; therefore, are subjected to the artefact of vertical flow in the well. Accordingly, while the CTD shows an immediate and sharp response when pumping is stopped, the SMD provides a gradual electric conductivity (EC) change, demonstrating that stability is reached just after a few days, which illustrates, more precisely, the hydrological response of the aquifer.

More and more data of groundwater quantity and quality is acquired and exists. The means to collect it (GPRS, Radio, IoT…) have been developed during the last years. Storing this data is not a problem. But, having a mean to have all the different data gathered in the same platform with the possibility to display and analyse them in a simple and rapid way doesn’t exist enough. A web application has been developed to answer this problem. This application enables to store all type of groundwater data (water table elevation, groundwater quality, borehole information, water extraction data…) in order to display it. The organisation of this application allows displaying all the data by site. Several tools to analyse the data are included (calculation of hydrogeological parameters, statistics, interpolation) allowing a first data interpretation, in particular for salt water intrusion issues. This web application was born from collaboration between IT experts and environmental engineers.

In February 2016, two remote controlled geophysical monitoring tools (SMD) have been installed for the first time in the Reunion Island. Settled into two piezometers drilled into a basaltic coastal aquifer, between the ocean and a production well, they allow the record of groundwater electrical conductivity (ECw) logs on a 30 min basis. Thanks to those two tools, water operator continuously knows the shape and the position of the SWI as data are available online on a secured web application designed especially for SWI data management. During the observation period a 5,15 m rise of SWI interface has been recorded. Knowing the average porosity, water table elevation and SWI interface position it is possible to estimate available fresh groundwater volume. Along a 1 km band between extraction well and the ocean, available fresh groundwater volume was found to be 1 259 000 m3 in June 2016. In June 2017, due to SWI progression this volume was found to be 777 000 m3, that to say a 480 000 m3 volume of freshwater replaced by brackish water. SMD network will now be spread in the Reunion Island to improve coastal extraction well management knowing SWI shape and position on a high frequency basis.