Managed aquifer recharge: rediscovering nature as a leading edge technology

Abstract

Use of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) has rapidly increased in Australia, USA, and Europe in recent years as an efficient means of recycling stormwater or treated sewage effluent for non-potable and indirect potable reuse in urban and rural areas. Yet aquifers have been relied on knowingly for water storage and unwittingly for water treatment for millennia. Hence if 'leading edge' is defined as 'the foremost part of a trend; a vanguard', it would be misleading to claim managed aquifer recharge as a leading edge technology. However it has taken a significant investment in scientific research in recent years to demonstrate the effectiveness of aquifers as sustainable treatment systems to enable managed aquifer recharge to be recognised along side engineered treatment systems in water recycling. It is a 'cross-over' technology that is applicable to water and wastewater treatment and makes use of passive low energy processes to spectacularly reduce the energy requirements for water supply. It is robust within limits, has low cost, is suitable from village to city scale supplies, and offers as yet almost untapped opportunities for producing safe drinking water supplies where they do not yet exist. It will have an increasingly valued role in securing water supplies to sustain cities affected by climate change and population growth. However it is not a universal panacea and relies on the presence of suitable aquifers and sources of water together with effective governance to ensure human health and environment protection and water resources planning and management. This paper describes managed aquifer recharge, illustrates its use in Australia, outlining economics, guidelines and policies, and presents some of the knowledge about aquifer treatment processes that are revealing the latent value of aquifers as urban water infrastructure and provide a driver to improving our understanding of urban hydrogeology.

Coupling distributed stormwater collection and managed aquifer recharge: Field application and implications

“…Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) can improve groundwater supply and quality (Lee et al, 1992;Ma and Spalding, 1997;Scanlon et al, 2016) by introducing excess surface water into underlying aquifers with subsequent municipal, agricultural, and/or environmental benefit (Bouwer, 1999(Bouwer, , 2002Dillon, 2005;Dillon et al, 2010). MAR methods to move surface water into aquifers include infiltration basins, farm field flooding, stream bank filtration, and injection wells (Doussan et al, 1998;Pavelic et al, 2006;O'Geen et al, 2015).…”

How Subsurface Water Technologies (SWT) can Provide Robust, Effective, and Cost-Efficient Solutions for Freshwater Management in Coastal Zones

“…However, the subsurface may provide more robust, effective, sustainable, and cost-efficient freshwater management solutions due to a better water conservation and limited space requirements aboveground. For instance, the concept of subsurface storage and/or treatment known as managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is increasingly applied worldwide for water storage and treatment (Dillon et al 2010). In coastal zones, however, the abstraction of (stored) freshwater is generally hampered by saline groundwater, causing early salinization of simple abstraction wells due to buoyancy effects and upconing (Oude Essink 2001;Ward et al 2009).…”

Inventory of managed aquifer recharge sites in Europe: historical development, current situation and perspectives

“…In developing water availability strategies in the face of numerous challenges, Europe is not alone; worldwide, MAR is being considered as an integral and essential technique to meet objectives and demands for the future-e.g., Sheng and Zhao (2014); Megdal et al (2014); Dillon et al (2010). As globally, the pressure on freshwater supplies increases by growing water demand, intensified by continued urbanization, increased agricultural needs for food production and the desire to preserve ecosystem integrity, MAR is expected to be increasingly relied on.…”

“…However, the subsurface may provide more robust, effective, sustainable, and cost-efficient freshwater management solutions-for instance, artificial recharge of aquifers with temporary freshwater surpluses is increasingly applied worldwide for water storage and treatment (Dillon et al 2010). Typically, artificial recharge in unconfined aquifers is used to increase volumetric water availability by filling part of the overlying unsaturated zone.…”