Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 48, Issue 21, Pages -Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095336
Keywords
mixing; transport in porous media; groundwater; surface water interaction
Categories
Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the TUM International Graduate School for Science and Engineering (IGSSE) [GSC 81]
- Bayerische Forschungsallianz (BayFOR) GmbH [BayIntAn_TUM_2019_65]
- Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT)
- Consejo Veracruzano de Investigacion Cientifica y Desarrollo Tecnologico (COVEICYDET)
- DFG [CH 981/4-1]
- Projekt DEAL
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This study used high-resolution flow-through experiments to investigate transport processes in an aquifer affected by hydropeaking. The results showed that hydropeaking significantly enhances spreading and mixing in the subsurface, highlighting the importance of considering highly transient flow regimes in capturing transport and mixing-controlled biogeochemical reactions at the surface water - groundwater interface.
This study presents high-resolution flow-through experiments investigating transport processes in a laboratory setup mimicking an aquifer affected by hydropeaking (i.e., abrupt fluctuations in the river stage by the release or storage of water in reservoirs). Highly transient flow conditions were experimentally generated by sudden changes of the water level in two rivers in hydraulic contact with an unconfined aquifer. High-resolution image analysis and depth-resolved, high-frequency sampling at the outlet allowed monitoring of the spatio-temporal evolution and the breakthrough of a dye tracer plume in the porous medium. The plume spreading and mixing were quantified by moment analysis and entropy-based metrics of the scalar field. We show that hydropeaking strongly enhances spreading and mixing in the subsurface (up to 249.5% and 41.8% in these experiments) and demonstrate the relevance of considering highly transient flow regimes to properly capture transport and mixing-controlled biogeochemical reactions at the surface water - groundwater interface.
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