WaterUnderground

Groundwater

Can we use an infrared camera to tell us how much groundwater is coming out of the side of a cliff?

29th March 2016
Can we use an infrared camera to tell us how much groundwater is coming out of the side of a cliff?

By Erin Mundy – a plain language summary of part of her Masters thesis Groundwater is an important resource, with approximately 2 billion people around the world using groundwater everyday. Although most groundwater is beneath our feet, sometimes groundwater leaks out of stream-banks, hill sides and cliff faces – this is called groundwater seepage. Current scientific methods are not ab ...[Read More]

Baseflow, groundwater pumping, and river regulation in the Wisconsin Central Sands

15th March 2016
Baseflow, groundwater pumping, and river regulation in the Wisconsin Central Sands

By Sam Zipper, postdoctoral fellow at Madison and author of tacosmog.com We often think of groundwater as a nonrenewable reservoir, deep underground, and with good reason – less than ~6% of groundwater globally entered the ground within the past 50 years. However, where a river or stream intersects the water table, water is able to move from the aquifer to the stream (or vice versa). This supply o ...[Read More]

Tracking the Fallout and Fate of Fukushima Iodine-129 in Rain and Groundwater

1st March 2016
Tracking the Fallout and Fate of Fukushima Iodine-129 in Rain and Groundwater

This post is written by Matt Herod, and reposted here with permission… A recently published paper (by myself and colleagues from uOttawa and Environment Canada) investigates the environmental fate of the long lived radioisotope of iodine, 129I, which was released by the Fukushima-Daichii Nuclear Accident (FDNA). Within 6 days of the FDNA 129I concentrations in Vancouver precipitation increas ...[Read More]

Nature Geoscience digging into water underground this month!

4th February 2016
Nature Geoscience digging into water underground this month!

Nature Geoscience is digging hard into water underground – the February issue is part of a special focus on groundwater. The cover this month is a gorgeous (groundwater-filled?) waterfall by Glen Jasechko, Scott’s brother.  The groundwater focus includes: commentary on drought in the Anthropocene, led by Anne van Loon news and views pieces by Ying Fan and Tamara Goldin our paper on the ...[Read More]

Water Canada article on our research

26th January 2016
Water Canada article on our research

Scott Jasechko and I wrote an article for Water Canada about our research on modern groundwater published last fall in Nature Geoscience. We tried desperately to use plain language… how did we do? See WaterCanadaWinter2016

Fantasy Bottled Water Brands of Tomorrow: Ogallala Water

2nd October 2015
Fantasy Bottled Water Brands of Tomorrow: Ogallala Water

We are peering into the not-so-distant future to imagine what the brand geniuses of the future will be serving up for discerning water consumers! The Brand: Ogallala Source: Great Plains Why? Deep down, you know you love it. Promotional Copy: Ogallala Water: GET PUMPED. Swill waters run deep so we go deep, deep, deep into the Great Plains water table to pipe this ancient, undisturbed water to your ...[Read More]

How easily does our understanding of ‘CRUSTAL PERMEABILITY’ flow ? A new Geofluids special edition…

3rd September 2015
How easily does our understanding of ‘CRUSTAL PERMEABILITY’ flow ? A new Geofluids special edition…

Permeability is a crazy parameter: heterogeneous on many spatial scales, highly variable over up to 20 orders of magnitude, and transient on many temporal scales. Yet, for better or for worse it is essential to our understanding of numerous earth processes, as well as how human impact and interact with the earth. I have had the honor of guest editing a special issue  of Geofluids called ‘Cru ...[Read More]

A new data portal for permeability!

5th August 2015
A new data portal for permeability!

Permeability data is tucked many dusty corners of the web and in even dustier reports, books and thesis. The purpose of the Crustal Permeability Data Portal is to ‘unearth’ (pun intended!) permeability data by providing links to online, peer-reviewed permeability data that is open to anyone around the world. This data portal collates links to other data sources rather than hosting data and is a co ...[Read More]