Delineation of spatial-temporal patterns of groundwater/surface-water interaction along a river reach (Aa River, Belgium) with transient thermal modeling

Anibas, Christian; Tolche, Abebe Debele; Ghysels, Gert; Nossent, Jiri; Schneidewind, Uwe; Huysmans, Marijke; Batelaan, Okke

doi:10.1007/s10040-017-1695-9

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is a tributary of the Kleine Nete River and has a drainage area of 237 km 2 . In the study area, it has an average discharge of about 1.9 m 3 /s, an inclination of 0.48‰, and a manning coefficient of 0.06 [60,66]. The area is characterised by a temperate maritime climate with mild winters.…”

Section: Study Area and Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two sections were chosen in the study area, based on earlier research of Anibas et al [21,60]. This allowed us to compare the impact of temperature and hydraulic conductivity data on flux estimates along the river course for partially distinct (hydro)geological settings.…”

Section: Study Area and Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we study the spatial distribution of river-aquifer exchange fluxes at the meterscale for two sections of the Aa River, Belgium, which are obtained with two different methodological approaches-(i) the heat tracer method and (ii) numerical groundwater flow modelling, respectively. Groundwater-surface water interaction along the Aa River and its streambed characteristics have been studied previously, using heat as a tracer [21,60,61], in-stream piezometers [24], hydraulic conductivity measurements [51,62], electrical resistivity tomography, and induced polarisation [63] in addition to regional [64] and local reach groundwater modelling [58,65]. In this study, we first estimate point-in-time vertical exchange fluxes from 115 riverbed temperature profiles using a simple 1D analytical solution to the heat transport equation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Significance of Vertical and Lateral Groundwater–Surface Water Exchange Fluxes in Riverbeds and Riverbanks: Comparing 1D Analytical Flux Estimates with 3D Groundwater Modelling

Ghysels

Anibas

Awol

et al. 2021

Water

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Riverbed temperature profiles are frequently used to estimate vertical river–aquifer exchange fluxes. Often in this approach, strictly vertical flow is assumed. However, riverbeds are heterogeneous structures often characterised by complex flow fields, possibly violating this assumption. We characterise the meter-scale variability of river–aquifer interaction at two sections of the Aa River, Belgium, and compare vertical flux estimates obtained with a 1D analytical solution to the heat transport equation with fluxes simulated with a 3D groundwater model (MODFLOW) using spatially distributed fields of riverbed hydraulic conductivity. Based on 115 point-in-time riverbed temperature profiles, vertical flux estimates that are obtained with the 1D solution are found to be higher near the banks than in the center of the river. The total exchange flux estimated with the 3D groundwater model is around twice as high as the estimate based on the 1D solution, while vertical flux estimates from both methods are within a 10% margin. This is due to an important contribution of non-vertical flows, especially through the riverbanks. Quasi-vertical flow is only found near the center of the river. This quantitative underestimation should be considered when interpreting exchange fluxes based on 1D solutions. More research is necessary to assess conditions for which using a 1D analytical approach is justified to more accurately characterise river–aquifer exchange fluxes.

show abstract

Section: Study Area and Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Area and Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Significance of Vertical and Lateral Groundwater–Surface Water Exchange Fluxes in Riverbeds and Riverbanks: Comparing 1D Analytical Flux Estimates with 3D Groundwater Modelling

Ghysels

Anibas

Awol

et al. 2021

Water

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In Belgium, research projects with a focus on river-aquifer interactions have been intensively carried out in the Aa river, a typical Flemish lowland river, using a combination of multiple methods, such as heat tracer, river bed hydraulic conductivity measurements and numerical modelling approaches (Anibas et al, 2009(Anibas et al, , 2011(Anibas et al, , 2015(Anibas et al, , 2017Ghysels et al, 2018Ghysels et al, , 2021Schneidewind et al, 2016). However, these applications are limited to relatively small spatial scale studies, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring river–aquifer interactions and hydrological system response using baseflow separation, impulse response modelling and time series analysis in three temperate lowland catchments

Liu

Rogiers

Beerten

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Lowland rivers and shallow aquifers are closely coupled and their interactions are crucial for maintaining healthy stream ecological functions. In order to explore river–aquifer interactions and lowland hydrological system in three Belgian catchments, we apply a combined approach of baseflow separation, impulse response modelling and time series analysis over a 30–year study period at catchment scale. Baseflow from hydrograph separation shows that the three catchments are groundwater-dominated. The recursive digital filter methods generate a smoother baseflow time series than the graphical methods, and yield more reliable results than the graphical ones. Impulse response modelling is applied with a two–step procedure. The first step where groundwater level response is modelled shows that groundwater level in shallow aquifers reacts fast to the system input, with most of the wells reaching their peak response during the first day. There is an overall trend of faster response time and higher response magnitude in the wet (October–March) than the dry (April–September) periods. The second step of baseflow response modelling shows that the system response is also fast and that simulated baseflow can capture some variations but not the peaks of the separated baseflow time series. The time series analysis indicates that components such as interflow and overland flow, contribute significantly to stream flow. They are somehow included as part of the separated baseflow, which is likely to be overestimated from hydrograph separation. The impulse response modelling approach from the groundwater flow perspective can be an optional method to estimate the baseflow, since it considers some level of the physical connection between river and aquifer in the subsurface. Further research is however recommended to improve the simulation, such as giving more weight to wells close to the river and adding more drainage dynamics to the model input.

show abstract

“…River corridors are heterogeneous in space, non-stationary, and involve multiscale feedbacks (Ward and Packman, 2019). Previous studies suggested that research on river corridor processes has suffered from the lack of the long-term (weeks to years) investigations on the dynamic driving forces (e.g., streamflow, evapotranspiration) of hyporheic processes across different scales (Boano et al, 2007;Helton et al, 2012;Larsen et al, 2014;Anibas et al, 2018;Galloway et al, 2019;Zheng et al, 2019). A recent kilometer scale simulation of a major gravel bed river corridor along the Columbia River by Zachara et al (2020) suggested that hyporheic zones must be frequently monitored under different flow conditions for water quality concerns because of the complicated multidirectional flow behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-Performance Simulation of Dynamic Hydrologic Exchange and Implications for Surrogate Flow and Reactive Transport Modeling in a Large River Corridor

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hydrologic exchange flows (HEFs) have environmental significance in riverine ecosystems. Key river channel factors that influence the spatial and temporal variations of HEFs include river stage, riverbed morphology, and riverbed hydraulic conductivity. However, their impacts on HEFs were often evaluated independently or on small scales. In this study, we numerically evaluated the combined interactions of these factors on HEFs using a high-performance simulator, PFLOTRAN, for subsurface flow and transport. The model covers 51 square kilometers of a selected river corridor with large sinuosity along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington, US. Three years of spatially distributed hourly river stages were applied to the riverbed. Compared to the simulation when riverbed heterogeneity is not ignored, the simulation using homogeneous riverbed conductivity underestimated HEFs, especially upwelling from lateral features, and overestimated the mean residence times derived from particle tracking. To derive a surrogate model for the river corridor, we amended the widely used transient storage model (TSM) for riverine solute study at reach scale with reactions. By treating the whole river corridor as a batch reactor, the temporal changes in the exchange rate coefficient for the TSM were derived from the dynamic residence time estimated from the hourly PFLOTRAN results. The TSM results were evaluated against the effective concentrations in the hyporheic zone calculated from the PFLOTRAN simulations. Our results show that there is potential to parameterize surrogate models such as TSM amended with biogeochemical reactions while incorporating small-scale process understandings and the signature of time-varying streamflow to advance the mechanistic understanding of river corridor processes at reach to watershed scales. However, the assumption of a well-mixed storage zone for TSM should be revisited when redox-sensitive reactions in the storage zones play important roles in river corridor functioning.

show abstract

Delineation of spatial-temporal patterns of groundwater/surface-water interaction along a river reach (Aa River, Belgium) with transient thermal modeling

Cited by 17 publications

References 48 publications

The Significance of Vertical and Lateral Groundwater–Surface Water Exchange Fluxes in Riverbeds and Riverbanks: Comparing 1D Analytical Flux Estimates with 3D Groundwater Modelling

The Significance of Vertical and Lateral Groundwater–Surface Water Exchange Fluxes in Riverbeds and Riverbanks: Comparing 1D Analytical Flux Estimates with 3D Groundwater Modelling

Exploring river–aquifer interactions and hydrological system response using baseflow separation, impulse response modelling and time series analysis in three temperate lowland catchments

High-Performance Simulation of Dynamic Hydrologic Exchange and Implications for Surrogate Flow and Reactive Transport Modeling in a Large River Corridor

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About