TY - JOUR
T1 - The snow and rainfall impact on the Verde spring behavior
T2 - A statistical approach on hydrodynamic and hydrochemical daily time-series
AU - Chiaudani, Alessandro
AU - Di Curzio, D.
AU - Rusi, Sergio
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - The wide regional aquifer system springs are one of the most important sources of freshwater, especially because of the ever-increasing global water demand. Thus, these springs must be protected and managed in a sustainable manner. To this purpose, a detailed knowledge about the corresponding aquifer systems hydrodynamic is vital. In this general framework, the Majella carbonate aquifer is one of the most important as well as heterogenous aquifer systems in Central Italy. It is characterized by high elevation, a heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity distribution and groundwater flow, and its recharge is mainly due to both rainfall and snowmelt. Its most important spring is the Verde spring, located in the eastern side, exploited for drinking and hydroelectric purposes. The main objectives of this research are (1) to get a deeper insight into the hydrogeological conceptual model of the Verde spring, combining multiparameter input and output time-series, and (2) to quantify each inflow effect on the Verde spring parameters by a methodological approach that is quite uncommon in literature: comparing univariate and bivariate statistical analyses of both raw and residual (non-systematic component) time-series. The results obtained highlighted that the snowmelt is the most important inflow of the Majella aquifer system. The snow cover melting leaks slowly large amount of water into the aquifer and creates smoothly significative modifications to the spring discharge, electrical conductivity and temperature, in terms of groundwater volume increase and dilution. Contrariwise, although the rainfall inflow volume and the corresponding spring parameters changes are very limited, the transient behavior of the rainfall inflow allowed identifying different recharge modes. These recharge modes depend on several flow paths in the unsaturated zone, characterized by different water volumes brought toward the saturated zone, sizes, hydraulic conductivities, and distances from the Verde spring.
AB - The wide regional aquifer system springs are one of the most important sources of freshwater, especially because of the ever-increasing global water demand. Thus, these springs must be protected and managed in a sustainable manner. To this purpose, a detailed knowledge about the corresponding aquifer systems hydrodynamic is vital. In this general framework, the Majella carbonate aquifer is one of the most important as well as heterogenous aquifer systems in Central Italy. It is characterized by high elevation, a heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity distribution and groundwater flow, and its recharge is mainly due to both rainfall and snowmelt. Its most important spring is the Verde spring, located in the eastern side, exploited for drinking and hydroelectric purposes. The main objectives of this research are (1) to get a deeper insight into the hydrogeological conceptual model of the Verde spring, combining multiparameter input and output time-series, and (2) to quantify each inflow effect on the Verde spring parameters by a methodological approach that is quite uncommon in literature: comparing univariate and bivariate statistical analyses of both raw and residual (non-systematic component) time-series. The results obtained highlighted that the snowmelt is the most important inflow of the Majella aquifer system. The snow cover melting leaks slowly large amount of water into the aquifer and creates smoothly significative modifications to the spring discharge, electrical conductivity and temperature, in terms of groundwater volume increase and dilution. Contrariwise, although the rainfall inflow volume and the corresponding spring parameters changes are very limited, the transient behavior of the rainfall inflow allowed identifying different recharge modes. These recharge modes depend on several flow paths in the unsaturated zone, characterized by different water volumes brought toward the saturated zone, sizes, hydraulic conductivities, and distances from the Verde spring.
KW - Aquifer recharge
KW - Groundwater
KW - Hydrogeological conceptual model
KW - Multiparameter dataset
KW - Spring behavior
KW - Time-series analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068236857&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.433
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.433
M3 - Article
C2 - 31279195
AN - SCOPUS:85068236857
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 689
SP - 481
EP - 493
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -