WaterUnderground

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Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals

7th May 2019
Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals
Tom Gleeson talking about doughnut economics and showing great doughnut eating restraint.

Water Underground creator Tom Gleeson prepared this quick research video (with no more than a toothbrush, a file holder, and a doughnut, in one take!) for the Ripples project meeting at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, that was held in April. In this video, he talks about using doughnut economics for linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

 

Curious about why a toothbrush features in the video? For the answer, you’ll need to watch Tom’s previous research video from last summer (see below), on “Revisiting the planetary boundary for water”.

Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 2019?

5th April 2019
Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 2019?
Is that a crowd of geoscientists wandering through Vienna?

Joint post by Sam Zipper (an EGU first-timer) and Anne Van Loon (an EGU veteran).

Every April, the European Geophysical Union (EGU) holds an annual meeting in Vienna. With thousands of presentations spread out over a full week, it can feel like you’re surrounded by a deluge of water-related options – particularly since the conference center is on an island!  To help narrow down the schedule! Here, we present a few water-related sessions and events each day that caught our attention. Feel free to suggest more highlights on Twitter (using #EGU19) or in the comments section!

Monday 8 April

Using R in Hydrology (SC1.44)

  • Short course 16:15-18:00.
  • This short course will cover R packages and tools for hydrology with both newcomers and experienced users in mind.

Innovative sensing techniques for water monitoring, modelling, and management: Satellites, gauges, and citizens (HS3.3).

  • Posters 16:15-18:00.
  • Curious about new approaches to hydrological science? This session features citizen science, crowdsourcing, and other new data collection techniques.

Plastics in the Hydrosphere: An urgent problem requiring global action

Tuesday 9 April

Nature-based solutions for hydrological extremes and water-resources management (HS5.1.2)

  • Posters 08:30-10:15, Orals 10:45-12:30
  • Nature-based solutions are meant to be ‘living’ approaches to address water management challenges – this session will explore how they are used in both urban and rural areas.

HS Division meeting: If you want to know more about the organisation of the Hydrological Sciences Division of EGU (and you like free lunch) check this out!

Plinius Medal Lecture by Philip J. Ward: Global water risk dynamics

Wednesday 10 April

Large-sample hydrology: characterising and understanding hydrological diversity (HS2.5.2)

Sustainability and adaptive management of groundwater resources in a changing environment (HS8.2.1)

  • Posters 10:45-12:30, Orals 16:15-18:00.
  • This session features examples of groundwater sustainability (and challenges) all over the world, with a particular focus on Integrated Water Resources Management.

HS Division Outstanding ECS Lecture by Serena Ceola: Human-impacted rivers: new perspectives from global high-resolution monitoring

Geoscience Game Night (SCA1)

Thursday 11 April

How can Earth, Planetary, and Space scientists contribute to the UN SDGs? (ITS3.5)

  • PICOs 16:15-18:00.
  • Check out the fun PICO format – a combination of posters and talks – and help figure out what the role of earth science is in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Urban groundwater: A strategic resource (HS8.2.7)

  • PICOs 10:45-12:30.
  • Urban groundwater is understudied relative to groundwater in agricultural areas – what do we know about urban groundwater, and what remains to be learned?

Henry Darcy Medal Lecture by Petra Döll: Understanding and communicating the global freshwater system

Friday 12 April

Innovative methods to facilitate open science and data analysis in hydrology (HS1.2.7)

  • PICOs 08:30-12:30
  • Learn about how you can make your science more open, whether you are an open science beginner or a long-time data sharer!

History of Hydrology (HS1.2.3)

Social Science methods for natural scientists (SC1.48)

  • Short course 14:00–15:45
  • This short course is for everyone who has some dealings with people in their research, such as stakeholders, citizen science, The aim of the session is to demystify Social Science and give practical tips & tricks.

Other Resources

Several other groups and blogs have also compiled water-relevant sessions. Make sure to check out their recommendations, as well!

Cover image source: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/09/09/21/33/vienna-933500_960_720.jpg

 

Have you ever wondered if groundwater is connected to climate?

1st April 2019
Have you ever wondered if groundwater is connected to climate?

Post by Tom Gleeson,  Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Victoria.

‘Groundwater-surface water interactions’ has become standard hydrologic lexicon and a perennial favorite session title at various conferences… but how often do you hear the phrase ‘groundwater-climate interactions’?

A group of hydrologists, hydrogeologists, atmospheric scientists and geodesists that met in Taiwan this week would say ‘not enough!’ We met to discuss how groundwater, the slow-moving grandparent of the hydrologic cycle interacts with the atmosphere, the fast-moving toddler. The 2nd international workshop on Impacts of Groundwater in Earth system Models (IGEM), was a follow-up of a 2016 workshop in Paris in 2016 (and part of a the bilateral French-Taiwanese IGEM project).

Sessions were focused around a few themes:

  • Groundwater use and its impacts
  • Groundwater representation, assimilation and evaluation in climate models
  • Remote Sensing and in-situ observations on groundwater
  • Groundwater-climate interactions with a special focus on Nebraska

 

And in the afternoons we convened discussion groups focused on ‘groundwater representation in continental to global hydrologic models’ and ‘groundwater-climate interactions’ and arguably just as importantly we ate lots of great food including an awesome fusion dinner and dumplings at the famous Din Tai Fung.

I would love to say that we could provide you with a simple, robust answer to the leading question of how and where groundwater is connected to climate – a holy grail of Earth System science. But like all good questions, the answer at least right now is ‘a little bit in some places, and it depends how you look at it’. We discussed the first enticing but preliminary results of potential hotspots of groundwater-climate interactions, expounded on the importance to water sustainability and dissected vadose zone parameterizations in land surface models but the quest for this holy grail goes on… We plan to meet again in a few years in Saskatchewan and maybe have a few more answers. Do you want to join us on this holy grail quest, and maybe end up making ‘groundwater-climate interactions’ more standard lexicon?

P.S. Thanks to Min-Hui Lo and his group at National Taiwan University for the excellent hospitality and organization!

P.S.S. Just in case it goes viral, the term ‘baddest-ass model’ was first used by Jay Famiglietti (see below).

Celestial groundwater – the subsurface plumbing for extraterrestrial life support

25th March 2019
Celestial groundwater – the subsurface plumbing for extraterrestrial life support

Post by Kevin Befus,  Assistant Professor in Civil and Architectural Engineering at the University of Wyoming.

Have you ever taken a walk on the beach during a lowering (ebbing) tide and see mini-rivers grow and create beautiful drainage patterns before your eyes? These short-lived groundwater seepage features (Fig. 1A) are tiny (and fast) analogs of how groundwater has shaped some parts of Mars! It appears that groundwater loosening sediments can lead to all sorts of scales of erosion on both Earth and Mars.

Figure 1. A) Beach drainage pattern on the order of 1 meter (Source: https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2017/01/beach-drainage.html), B) Martian “alcoves” suggesting groundwater seepage [1].

Mars is not currently a friendly place for water to exist at the surface or even the subsurface, but an abundance of photographic and topographic evidence point to there having been the right conditions for active groundwater flow on Mars.

But isn’t Mars too cold for liquid water? The answer is generally a strong yes for the past few billion years, but amazingly enough, there appears to have been some local places where groundwater discharged to the Martian surface and left behind telltale signs.

Because Mars is cold at its land surface (mean surface temperature of -50 C with daily swings from 0 C to -100 C) with a thinner atmosphere than Earth’s, water on the Martian surface can exist as ice (as in the polar ice cap), but sublimation and evaporation would quickly wick any water near the surface. So, liquid water on Mars needs both more pressure and a good bit of heat for mobile groundwater based on the phase diagram below (circle with M shows the present day Martian surface conditions).

Figure 2. Phase diagram showing average conditions at the planetary surface for Earth (E) near the triple point, and atmospheric conditions for the frozen Mars (M) and vapor-rich Venus (V). source: http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_phase_diagram.html#intr2; License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/)

It turns out that the most expansive evidence of liquid groundwater on Mars comes from deep at the bottom of craters (…deeper than 5 km!), where the Martian geothermal gradient (~10 C/km [Michalski et al.2013]) heats up to the point where groundwater systems, probably made up of brines, can seep across the crater walls. Without the craters, the groundwater wouldn’t have anywhere to discharge, but extraterrestrial hydrogeologists (really based on the geomorphology, but using E.T. hydrogeology principles) have identified numerous craters with groundwater seepage erosional patterns (Figure 1). The question remains open on how connected the Martian “aquifers” could be, or if the craters represent only local flow systems.

With liquid groundwater transporting the chemical-rich waters from deeper geothermal areas, the conditions could be right for supporting a deep Martian biosphere. Buried in under the Martian ice, soil, and rock microbial life could have evolved in the subterranean shelter from cosmic radiation. Groundwater flow, potentially related to geothermal conditions, could then have served as the conveyor belt for energy-rich molecules to feed microbial life in the subsurface (and still could?).

So far, Earth is the only celestial body in our solar system with an active water-hydrologic cycle, making us the lucky green planet. But, there could be a methane-based hydrologic cycle on Titan with “methanifers” as methane aquifers! For more information on extraterrestrial hydrogeology, Baker et al. (2005) provides a great overview of the planetary, lunar, and exo-planetary potential for water and groundwater, loosely summarized in this table.

At the moment, Earthlings don’t know that much yet about the paleo-hydrologic processes on Mars. But with new boots…I mean wheels…on the ground in two water-focused locations, new clues could start rolling in on Martian groundwater. The recently-arrived InSight lander will probe the Martian subsurface by drilling 5 m deep and listen for acoustic signals for even more information on the interior of Mars. The next Mars Rover is scheduled to take flight in 2020 for the Jezero Crater, where a river delta could help unravel the water-life story of Mars. And could have some groundwater surprises! At only about 1 km deep, the focus in mainly on tracking down signs of life and unravelling surface hydrologic and erosional processes on Mars, but a long list of expected outcomes does show the mission will keep an eye out for evidence of groundwater activities. Keep your feet grounded, eyes in the sky, and visions of Martian groundwater flying high and drilling low!

References
[1] Malin, M. C., and K. S. Edgett (2000), Evidence for Recent Groundwater Seepage and Surface Runoff on Mars, Science, 288(5475), 2330–2335, doi:10.1126/science.288.5475.2330.
[2] Michalski, J. R., J. Cuadros, P. B. Niles, J. Parnell, A. Deanne Rogers, and S. P. Wright (2013), Groundwater activity on Mars and implications for a deep biosphere, Nat. Geosci., 6(2), 133–138, doi:10.1038/ngeo1706.
[3] Stofan, E. R. et al. (2007), The lakes of Titan, Nature, 445(7123), 61–64, doi:10.1038/nature05438.
[4] Baker, V. R., J. M. Dohm, A. G. Fairén, T. P. A. Ferré, J. C. Ferris, H. Miyamoto, and D. Schulze-Makuch (2005), Extraterrestrial hydrogeology, Hydrogeol. J., 13(1), 51–68, doi:10.1007/s10040-004-0433-2.
[5] Robinson, K. L., and G. J. Taylor (2014), Heterogeneous distribution of water in the Moon, Nat. Geosci., 7(6), 401–408, doi:10.1038/ngeo2173.
[6] Jurac, S., M. A. McGrath, R. E. Johnson, J. D. Richardson, V. M. Vasyliunas, and A. Eviatar (2002), Saturn: Search for a missing water source, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29(24), 25-1-25–4, doi:10.1029/2002GL015855.

Kevin Befus leads the groundwater hydrology group in the Civil and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming. With his research group, he studies how groundwater systems respond to hydrologic conditions over glacial timescales and in mountainous and coastal environments.  You can follow along with Kevin’s research through any of the links below:

Personal Webpage | Twitter | Research Group Page | UW Faculty Page

 

 

 

 

 

Keep up to date on all WaterUnderground posts by following us on our LinkedIn page! Have an idea of an intriguing post idea? We’d love to hear from you.

 

Of Karst! – short episodes about karst

15th March 2019
Of Karst! – short episodes about karst

Post by Andreas Hartmann,  Assistant Professor in Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg.

Episode 4 – Karst Groundwater: quick and slow at the same time?

We often associate groundwater with large water storage and very slow water movement for instance compared to rivers. But is it possible that groundwater flow can be as quick as stream flow and, at the same aquifer, flow for several months or years before it is reaching the surface again? Of karst, it is possible! When chemical weathering is able dissolve carbonate rock, cracks and fissures may grow to a subsurface channel system that can take vast amounts of water flow (see Of Karst! – episode 2).

The schematic figure below shows how this affects water flow in a karst system. At the surface, water may flow for some distance (external runoff towards the recharge area or internal runoff within the recharge area), before it reaches a dissolution widened vertical crack or fissure. On its way, part of it may slowly infiltrate into the soil but the stronger the rainfall event, the more water will infiltrate quickly into cracks and fissures after being redistributed laterally. Consequently, slow and quick infiltration will be followed by slow and quick vertical flow through the vadose zone. The former through the carbonate rock matrix, the latter through the interconnected system of dissolution caves. Finally, recharge and groundwater flow take place, again quickly through the caves and slowly through the matrix.  When passing the system through the cave network, water can enter and leave the system within several hours. When taking the slow and diffuse path, the transit through the system may take months to years.

Because of this behavior, hydrogeologists often speak about the Duality of Karstic Groundwater Flow and storage, although it is known that there is a wide range of dynamics between quick flow through the caves and slow flow through the matrix and that lateral redistribution between the interconnected caves and the matrix takes place at almost every part of the system.

Figure 1: Schematic description of karstic groundwater flow and storage (Hartmann et al., 2014; modified)

A rather uncomfortable lesson on quick flow processes in karst was learned by a group of school students on a trip through a karstic cave in Thailand. Due to the quick recharge processes explained above, the groundwater tables could quickly rise blocking the return path of the group and resulting in a dramatic rescue mission:

In order to predict the impact of interplay of quick and slow karstic groundwater processes on cave water levels or water resources in general, karst-specific simulation models are necessary. If you are interested in those, follow the Water Underground blog’s postings and wait for Of Karst! Episode 5, which will introduce karstic groundwater modelling.

Andreas Hartmann is an Assistant Professor in Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg. His primary field of interest is karst hydrology and hydrological modelling. Find out more at his personal webpage www.subsurface-heterogeneity.com  

Further reading: Hartmann, A., Goldscheider, N., Wagener, T., Lange, J., Weiler, M., 2014. Karst water resources in a changing world: Review of hydrological modeling approaches. Rev. Geophys. 52, 218–242. doi:10.1002/2013rg000443

 

 

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Groundwater and Education – Part two

2nd August 2018
Groundwater and Education – Part two

Post by Viviana Re, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pavia (Università di Pavia), in Italy. You can follow Viviana on Twitter at @biralnas.

Part two of a two-part series on groundwater and education by Viviana.

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In my last post (“Drawing out groundwater (from the well)”) I wrote about the reasons why, as groundwater scientists, we should engage not only literally, when we collect groundwater samples to perform our research, but also metaphorically, such as raising awareness on the hidden component of the water cycle to stakeholders and civil society.

Education and capacity development can become more integrated in our work, in academia, if we emphasize and increase our attention given to finding the most effective way to train and motivate the new generations of hydrogeologists (e.g. Gleeson et al., 2012). Indeed, in a rapidly changing world where students have mostly unlimited access to information and tools, we cannot simply expect to adopt the “classical” teaching methods and be successful. Additionally, we certainly have to consider life long training of professionals to keep them up to date with respect to new information and contemporary issues (Re and Misstear, 2017).

Even more, I believe that our efforts should not be limited to education and training of groundwater scientists and professionals, but should also aim to bridge the famous gap between science and society.

This can involve a wide range of audiences and goals, but I think the following tips can apply to them all:

  • Consider shifting from a classical hydrogeological approach to a socio—hydrogeological one, particularly if your work entails assessing the impact of human activities on groundwater quality. Strengthening the connection with water end-users and well owners is fundamental to ensure an adequate knowledge transfer of our research results.

Picture 1: When sampling, do not forget to explain to well owners what you are doing and, most importantly, why you are there (photo by Chiara Tringali; Twitter @tringalichiara).

Picture 2: Interviews can be a precious moment for capacity building. If you can sit down with well owners and administer a semi structured interview, not only can you retrieve precious information and embed local know-how in your research, but also you can have time to disseminate results and discuss about the possible implementation of good practices to protect groundwater in the long run (photo by Chiara Tringali; Twitter @tringalichiara).

  • Engage with new media and social networks. It may seem like a waste of time, especially when productivity and “publish or perish” remain dogma in academia, but these are definitely the means everyone uses for communication nowadays. Not fully exploiting their potential can be make us miss a precious occasion for a direct interaction with stakeholders and the public.
  • Keep in mind that people are busy and we all get easily distracted. Try to use visual information as much as possible. Sometimes a short video, a nice picture or an informative graphic are more effective than a thousand words.
  • Improve your science communication skills. In a wold full of inputs, it is not sufficient to have something important to say. It, perhaps, matters more how you say it. For this reason, the time dedicated to learn how to speak in public, how to give an effective presentation (either if you are planning to give a talk in front of a technical audience or at a conference on vegetarianism) and how to write a press release is always well spent.
  • Share your passion. If you choose to work in hydrogeology or groundwater science, you are probably passionate about the environment and protecting our planet. Use these emotions to share your knowledge to civil society and learn how to adapt the content of your research to different audiences without trivializing it.

You can find more on this topic in the chapter “Education and capacity development for groundwater resources management” (Re and Misstear, 2017) of the book Advances in Groundwater Governance (Edited by Villholth et al., 2017).

-Cover picture by Cindy Kauss (2018)

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Viviana Re is a post doctoral research fellow at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of the University of Pavia (Italy). Her research interests are: isotope hydrogeology, groundwater quality monitoring and assessment, groundwater for international development.

She is currently working on the development and promotion of a new approach, called socio-hydrogeology, targeted to the effective incorporation of the social dimension into hydrogeochemical investigations.

Twitter: @biralnas – Personal website

How deep does groundwater go? Mining (dark) data from the depths

19th July 2018
How deep does groundwater go? Mining (dark) data from the depths

Post by Kevin Befus, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming, in the United States.

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3D geologic data can be hard to come by, and can be even more difficult to combine into a continuous dataset. The cross-sections shown here are directly from 3D groundwater models that I compiled [Befus et al., 2017], primarily from USGS groundwater models, for the U.S. East Coast. I kept each of the regional domains (different color swaths on the map) separate, since I ran into the issue of “border discontinuities” between different models where naming conventions and hydrostratigraphic structure didn’t match up. Kh is the horizontal hydraulic conductivity.

We’ve all been asked (or do the asking), “where does your water come from?” This is a fundamental question for establishing a series of additional questions that can ultimately help define strategies for valuing and protecting a particular water resource.

For groundwater, we could phrase this question differently, and I often do when talking to well owners: How deep is your well? If I get an answer to this, then I can dive into additional questions that can help define more about the local groundwater resource: How deep is the well screen? How long is the screen? Do you know what the water level in the well is? Has it changed over some given time? Seasonally?

These are all useful questions, and they serve to begin establishing the hydraulic conditions of a particular aquifer. I ask these whenever I can.

To do this at a larger scale, we can turn to various governmental agencies that regulate groundwater resources and/or water well drilling and often collect and store groundwater data (e.g., www.waterqualitydata.us/, http://nlog.nl/en/data, http://gin.gw-info.net/service/api_ngwds:gin2/en/gin.html, or http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/datainfo/NWRA.html). There is a wealth of information out there internationally on wells when they were drilled and where the driller first hit water. These driller logs can provide a snapshot in time of the water table elevation and can be extremely useful for tracking hydrologic variability [Perrone and Jasechko, 2017], extracting hydraulic parameters [Bayless et al., 2017],  and for testing model results [Fan et al., 2013]. Unfortunately for us earthy nerds, some governments have restricted access to well installation data for either certain types of wells (i.e., municipal) or for all wells, usually for privacy or safety concerns.

Back to the original question. How deep is groundwater? I keep this question broad. We can usually answer this question for particular areas where we have access to the right data, but for large parts of the globe, and potentially underneath you right now, we cannot answer this question. The “right data” for a hydrogeologist is some form of information on geologic/stratigraphic layer (or lack of layering) that can be tied to the rock properties. For a surficial, unconfined aquifer, this can be relatively easy, but when we start stacking several geologic units on top of each other or start actually using the groundwater, this question of how deep groundwater is becomes tricky. We could qualify this question by asking how deep “usable” groundwater is, which, of course, depends on our definition of usable water for a specific purpose. Or, we can point (or integrate) through the Earth’s crust, core, and right back to its crust and calculate the huge value of how much water is “in the ground” (and minerals)[Bodnar et al., 2013]. And I haven’t even brought up porosity yet! Or specific storage!

A example of a great public 3D interactive web viewer (https://wateratlas.net/) that integrates groundwater data, geological information, and well construction details produced by the Centre for Coal Seam Gas at the University of Queensland (https://ccsg.centre.uq.edu.au/), which is supported by the University of Queensland and industry partners. For more information on this water atlas, please contact Dr. Sue Vink (s.vink@smi.uq.edu.au) or Alexandra Wolhuter (a.wolhuter@uq.edu.au).

Don’t worry. I won’t go there. I want to harass/encourage the hydro[geo]logic community to get serious about sharing their hydrogeologic data. This does mean metadata (do I hear a collective groan?), but metadata and data management plans are increasingly required to secure funding. CUAHSI’s Hydroshare site (www.hydroshare.org) provides a platform uploading hydro models, and the U.S. Geological Survey has developed a slick web system for exploring hydrogeologic models. But, I’d like to take this further, or at least get a service like that going for anyone who wants to share their models. There is a wealth of crustal structure data out there, and groundwater models are unique in often containing some representation of three-dimensional geology/hydrostratigraphy along with Earth properties. There are some great deterministic, published datasets and models of global hydrogeology [De Graaf et al., 2015; Huscroft et al., 2018], but we can do better. Wouldn’t it be great to have a centralized database to extract an ensemble of hydrogeologic structure used in previous regional or local studies? How about be able to draw a model boundary on a web interface and extract 3D structure for your next model? And compare cross-sections between models in the same area? Want to start fitting your puzzle pieces into the international hydrogeologic puzzle? The question now becomes, how do we do it? A “DigitalCrust” has been proposed [Fan et al., 2015], but is not yet in reach.

Join the movement of a “Digital Earth” [Gore, 1998]!

Here are some examples, initiatives, and free 3D [hydro]geology resources to get you started:

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Kevin Befus leads the groundwater hydrology group in the Civil and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming. With his research group, he studies how groundwater systems respond to hydrologic conditions over glacial timescales and in mountainous and coastal environments.  You can follow along with Kevin’s research through any of the links below:

Personal Webpage | Twitter | Research Group Page | UW Faculty Page

 

 

 

 

 

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References

Bayless, E. R., L. D. Arihood, H. W. Reeves, B. J. S. Sperl, S. L. Qi, V. E. Stipe, and A. R. Bunch (2017), Maps and Grids of Hydrogeologic Information Created from Standardized Water-Well Driller’s Records of the Glaciated United States, U.S. Geol. Surv. Sci. Investig. Report2, 2015–5105, 34, doi:10.3133/sir20155105.

Befus, K. M., K. D. Kroeger, C. G. Smith, and P. W. Swarzenski (2017), The Magnitude and Origin of Groundwater Discharge to Eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico Coastal Waters, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44(20), 10,396-10,406, doi:10.1002/2017GL075238.

Bodnar, R. J., T. Azbej, S. P. Becker, C. Cannatelli, A. Fall, and M. J. Severs (2013), Whole Earth geohydrologic cycle, from the clouds to the core: The distribution of water in the dynamic Earth system, Geol. Soc. Am. Spec. Pap., 500, 431–461, doi:10.1130/2013.2500(13).

Fan, Y., H. Li, and G. Miguez-Macho (2013), Global patterns of groundwater table depth, Science, 339(6122), 940–943, doi:10.1126/science.1229881.

Fan, Y. et al. (2015), DigitalCrust – a 4D data system of material properties for transforming research on crustal fluid flow, Geofluids, 15(1–2), 372–379, doi:10.1111/gfl.12114.

Gore, A. (1998), The Digital Earth: Understanding our planet in the 21st Century, Aust. Surv., 43(2), 89–91, doi:10.1080/00050326.1998.10441850.

De Graaf, I. E. M., E. H. Sutanudjaja, L. P. H. Van Beek, and M. F. P. Bierkens (2015), A high-resolution global-scale groundwater model, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19(2), 823–837, doi:10.5194/hess-19-823-2015.

Huscroft, J., T. Gleeson, J. Hartmann, and J. Börker (2018), Compiling and Mapping Global Permeability of the Unconsolidated and Consolidated Earth: GLobal HYdrogeology MaPS 2.0 (GLHYMPS 2.0), Geophys. Res. Lett., 45(4), 1897–1904, doi:10.1002/2017GL075860.

Perrone, D., and S. Jasechko (2017), Dry groundwater wells in the western United States, Environ. Res. Lett., 12(10), 104002, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa8ac0.

 

Data drought or data flood?

28th May 2018
Data drought or data flood?

Post by Anne Van Loon, Lecturer in Physical Geography (Water sciences) at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom.

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The basis for (almost) all scientific work, at least in the earth and environmental sciences, is DATA. We all need data to search for the answers to our questions. There are a number of options to get hold of data; we can measure stuff ourselves in the field or in the lab, generate model data, process data measured by satellites, or use data that other people collected. The last option has the advantage that you can cover much larger temporal and spatial scales than if you do all the measurements yourself, but it is not necessarily much easier or quicker. In this blog I do a quick and dirty tour of large-scale data collection initiatives in hydrology and introduce a new initiative focusing on groundwater drought.

“Hydrometeorological data…” (source: https://cloudtweaks.com/)

The classical way for hydrologists to use other people’s data (also called “secondary data”) is to use national-scale government-funded hydrometeorological databases such as the National River Flow Archive (NRFA, https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/) and National Groundwater Level Archive (NGLA, http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/datainfo/levels/ngla.html) in the UK and the US Geological Survey Water Data in the USA (https://water.usgs.gov/data/). This seems a good and reliable source for data, but there are worries, for example that the number of gauges worldwide is decreasing due to various reasons (Mishra & Coulibaly, 2009; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007RG000243; Hannah et al., 2011; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hyp.7794) and that paper or microfilm archives are at risk (https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/what-we-do/observations/data-rescue-and-archives). These national data are collated in global databases like the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRCD, http://www.bafg.de/GRDC/EN/Home/homepage_node.html) and the Global Groundwater Network (GGN, https://ggmn.un-igrac.org/), hosted by the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC). The problem there is that it is very dependent on the national hydrometeorological institutes to provide data, the records are not always up to date and quality checked, and important meta-data are not always available.

That is the reason that many researchers spend a lot of time combining and expanding these datasets. A few recent examples (NB: not at all an exhaustive list):

These are very helpful, but also quite time consuming for a single person (usually an early-career scientist) or a small group of people to compile and the dataset easily becomes outdated.

On the other side of the spectrum is crowd-sourced or citizen science data. This is already quite common in meteorology, both for weather observations (Weather Observations Website, WOW, http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/), historic weather data (for example Weather Rescue, https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/edh/weather-rescue/) and climate model data (weather@home, https://www.climateprediction.net/, by Massey et al., 2014 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.2455 ), but citizen science is starting to get used in hydrology as well. Some examples are (again not exhaustive):

Example of crowd-sourcing hydrological data via an App (source: http://www.crowdhydrology.com/)

Most of these are using citizens as passive data collectors with the scientists doing the analysis and interpretation. The nice thing is that it creates lots of data, but the downside is a lot of local knowledge is underused. There are, however, also initiatives that try to make use of this local knowledge, either from citizens themselves, from the experts in government agencies, or from local scientists who know much more about the local hydrological situation. Some of these are funded projects, such as:

Some of these are not funded, like the UNESCO NE-FRIEND Low flow and Drought group that produced an analysis of the 2015 streamflow drought in Europe after a community effort to collect streamflow data and drought characteristics from partners in countries around Europe (Laaha et al., 2017, https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/21/3001/2017/hess-21-3001-2017.html). Or are only partly funded, for example by a COST action that only provides travel funding, as in the case of the FloodFreq initiative in which researchers collected a dataset of long streamflow records for Europe to study floods (Mediero et al. 2015, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169415004291) or the European Flood Database that could have been developed with support of an ERC Advanced Grant (Hall et al., 2015, https://www.proc-iahs.net/370/89/2015/piahs-370-89-2015.html).

The databases developed in funded projects are great because there is (researcher) time to develop something new. But it is also hard to maintain the database when the project funding stops and a permanent host then needs to be found. Unfunded projects can benefit from the enthusiasm and commitment of their collaborators, but have to rely on people spending time to provide data and be involved in the analysis and interpretation. These work best if they are rooted in active scientific communities or networks. I already mentioned the NE-FRIEND Low flow and Drought group (http://ne-friend.bafg.de/servlet/is/7402/), which developed into a nice group of scientific FRIENDs, but also organisations like the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS, https://iahs.info/) and the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH, https://iah.org/) play an important role (see Bonnell et al. 2006 – HELPing FRIENDs in PUBs; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hyp.6196 ). IAHS for example drives the Panta Rhei decade on Change in Hydrology and Society (https://iahs.info/Commissions–W-Groups/Working-Groups/Panta-Rhei.do), which has a number of very active working groups that are driving data sharing initiatives. Another very successful example is HEPEX (https://hepex.irstea.fr/), which is a true bottom-up network with “friendly people who are full of energy” (https://hepex.irstea.fr/hepex-highlights-egu-2018/). These international networks can provide the framework for data sharing initiatives.

The value of international scientific networks for data sharing (source: https://hepex.irstea.fr/)

It also helps if there is one (funded) person driving the data collection and if there is a clear aim or research question that everyone involved is interested in. Also, a clear procedure and format for the data helps. With that in mind, portals have been developed specifically for data sharing in hydrology, for example:

– SWITCH-ON that focusses on open data and virtual laboratories where people can do collective experiments (http://www.water-switch-on.eu/project_pages/index.html).

– Hydroshare, which is a collaborative website where people can upload hydrological data and models (https://www.hydroshare.org/)

The most inclusive are the initiatives (either funded or unfunded) that manage to incorporate local knowledge, so those that do not only collect data, but also work with the data providers for the interpretation of the data. This synthesis aspect is the main strength of these initiatives and a lot can be learned by bringing data and knowledges together, even if no new data is created.

In a NEW initiative we are hoping to combine some of the advantages of the above-mentioned data collection efforts. The Groundwater Drought Initiative (GDI, http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/waterResources/groundwaterDroughtInitiative/home.html) is a three-year initiative starting in April 2018 that aims to develop and support a network of European researchers and stakeholders with an interest in regional- to continental-scale groundwater droughts. Through the GDI network we will collect groundwater level data and groundwater drought impact information for Europe. This is needed because most of the data collection initiatives mentioned above are focussed on floods, not on drought, and most collate data on streamflow, not on groundwater. Since around 65% of the Europe’s drinking water supply is obtained from groundwater and drought is (and will increasingly be) a threat to water security in Europe, it is essential to get a good understanding of groundwater drought and its impacts. Since groundwater drought is typically large-scale and transboundary, data on a pan-European scale is needed to increase this understanding.

The GDI initiative is embedded in the NE-FRIEND Low flow and Drought group and has obtained a bit of funding from the UK Research Council for workshops and some researcher time, but we hope to arouse the interest and the enthusiasm of even more scientists and government employees of various nationalities and regions to be involved in the initiative and to contribute with data, meta-data, local knowledge and interpretation of data. In return the GDI will provide tools to visualise and analyse groundwater droughts, a regional- to continental-scale context of the groundwater drought information, insights into the impacts of major groundwater droughts, access to a network of international groundwater drought researchers and managers, and the opportunity to participate in joint scientific publications. The long-term sustainability of the initiative will hopefully be developed through the network that we will establish and through the link with formal organisations like the European Drought Centre (EDC, http://europeandroughtcentre.com/) and IGRAC (https://www.un-igrac.org/ ), where the groundwater drought data will be stored after the end of the funded project.

If you are interested, please get in touch:

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Anne Van Loon is a catchment hydrologist and hydrogeologist working on drought. She studies the relationship between climate, landscape/ geology, and hydrological extremes and its variation around the world. She is especially interested in the influence of storage in groundwater, human activities, and cold conditions (snow and glaciers) on the development of drought.

Bio taken from Anne’s University of Birmingham page.

Crowdfunding Science: What worked and what didn’t, who pledged and how did we reach them?

6th March 2018
Crowdfunding Science: What worked and what didn’t, who pledged and how did we reach them?
Jared Van Rooyen (at centre), pictured alongside research group members Yaa Agyare-Dwomoh (left) and Zita Harilall (right).

Post by Jared van Rooyen, MSc candidate in Earth Science at Stellenbosch University, in South Africa.

Part two of three in a Crowdfunding Science series by Jared.

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During March of 2017, myself and a group of students supervised by Dr. Jodie Miller of Stellenbosch University’s Earth Science department (South Africa) completed a 5-week long crowdfunding campaign. The Campaign raised R149 899.00 (€9800) from 120 backers that were both local and international. The campaign used several different mediums to attract potential backers. In this blog I will summarize what engagement methods we used and which ones worked the best.

Before I do this, I have also partitioned backers into three categories that describe to what degree they are separated from myself and the campaign team. Category 1 includes members of family, colleagues and close friends, that would likely contribute to your fundraising campaign regardless of how you marketed it or if they were confident you would succeed. Category 2 included people that myself or the campaign team either are acquainted with, have met before or have been suggested to us by a member of category 1. Category 3 backers are those that myself or my research team have no prior connection to and have been made aware of the campaign through 3rd party methods.

Half of backers fell into category 2 with the other half almost evenly distributed between categories 1 and 3. The distribution of funding received showed a similar distribution with a slightly skewed distribution toward category 3 backers contributing on average more than category 1 backers.

Engagement methods showed some interesting outcomes with direct contact contributing half of the backers as well as half of the funds raised, social media methods, which included Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, contributed the next largest portion of backers (a quarter) but was trumped by word of mouth backer’s average contribution amount. The remaining contributors were those who found out about the campaign through radio/newspaper interviews/articles, internet news and anonymous contributors for whom I have no data (Unknown).

Upon the completion of the campaign, backers were contacted to give feedback on what they believed was effective in the marketing strategy of the campaign. Although radio interviews did not produce a large amount of backers and funds, they produced the largest proportion of category 3 backers.

The data presented above only mentions the successful methods of engagement. In addition, there were several other attempts at fund raising that were somewhat less effective. These included: handing out flyers and putting up posters on campus and surround areas, approaching funding institutions as well as water related government and private entities for support and using mailing robots to send generic emails to large mailing lists.

Before the campaign had ended myself and two honours students had already left on our field sampling trip. In the final part of this blog series, I will break down, what we raised the funds for, what the groundwater sustainability project is trying to accomplish, and what has culminated as a direct result of postgraduate science crowdfunding.

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Jared van Rooyen is an MSc student at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. His primary field of interest is in isotope hydrology with major applications in groundwater vulnerability and sustainability. Other research interests include postgraduate research funding solutions and outreach as well as scientific engagement with the use of modern media techniques.

Check out Jared’s (and research group’s) thundafund  page here.

A cool new collectible: Water

2nd March 2018
A cool new collectible: Water

Post by Matt Herod, Waste and Decommissioning Project Officer for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and Adjunct Professor in Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Canada.

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I have always been a mineral and fossil collector. It was a hobby that stuck and blossomed into a career. I still collect minerals and fossils, although I’ve now added rocks from my field sites to the collection. One thing I should note is that for inanimate, immobile objects it is shocking how quickly rocks can colonize parts of a house, garage, basement, etc.

However, since my early years in geology a very large part of my day is concerned with water; my PhD was almost exclusively about water. Water is my focus and it is truly fascinating. So that got me thinking. Why don’t I collect water?

You may think water is all the same. Turn on the tap, it comes out, drink, wash, whatever. It’s just water. Well, you could not be more wrong. Water is different and changeable. Plus it fits in a small bottle. In short, the perfect collectible.

But maybe you’re not convinced to start collecting water just yet.

Water has types, an identity, just like people. You may be familiar with the notion of people’s personalities being Type A’s, B’s and C’s. Although the types of water are a little more nuanced. That said, so are the types of people.

Water is sorted into types based on its chemistry. The chemistry of water comes from the dissolved salts within it and the relative concentrations of those salts. The isotopic composition of water can also be used to identify its type. Some water types are classed based on their heritage. For example, water found in pore spaces deep underground is often called brine, the precursor to that brine is, or often was ancient ocean water.

Let me give you some examples of water with interesting identities. One thing I should mention is that many of the ways waters are typified only consider their dissolved salt concentration, however, when you factor pH, Eh, and isotopic variation of the many, many different isotopes the number of water types balloons exponentially. For example, a water with a pH of 6 and a total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration of 500 ppm can have isotopic ratios, age and origin totally different from another water with the same pH and TDS. Like I said, it gets complicated fast.

To start with an easy one:

Seawater: Not only is it familiar, it is pretty important given that 97% of Earth’s water is this type and a significant percentage of Earth’s biomass lives in it. Seawater is about 3.5% saline and one of the most interesting features of the water is that it is pretty much everywhere and chemically very consistent. There are differences in the composition of seawater in the certain places around the world, for example, in restricted basins salinity can be higher or where fresh water enters the ocean in a river delta or estuary salinity is lower. Isotopically seawater is also interesting. Not because it has an unusual isotopic composition, but because seawater has been set as the standard to which all other water is compared. It is the zero point that stable isotopes in all other water is measured against.

Glacial Water: Of the 3% of Earth’s water left after the oceans, 69% is frozen in glaciers. To condense the characteristics of glacial water into one word I’d say clean. It just doesn’t have much in it. The reason for this is that glacial water started its days as precipitation, which is water that was evaporated from a water body and condensed. The evaporation process removes almost all of the dissolved solutes. Therefore, there just isn’t much stuff in glacial water besides the H and the O. That doesn’t mean glacial water is boring though. There is still a lot that if can tell us. For example, the variations in O isotopes can be used to reconstruct past temperatures and gases trapped in the ice can tell us about the composition of past atmospheres as well. The information we get from glacial water is different, but extremely valuable!

Brine: Do not drink a brine. You WILL regret it. I do not speak from experience, but frankly if almost 30% of the fluid is salt, it simply isn’t drinkable. Brines come in a lot of flavours, and technically if it has >5% salt it’s considered brine. However, I have encountered some brines that are over 30% saline. Of course, they were not drinkable as they were porewater in a sedimentary basin. However, there are some extremely salty bodies of water out there as well. Brines are interesting because they have so many stories to tell. There is history there, recorded by the solutes, gases and isotopic composition of the brine that explains how it became more than a simple water and transcended the label of water entirely to become much, much more…a fluid. Typically brines in nature have a history that involves salt dissolution leading to high concentrations of Na and Cl. However, other types may simply be evaporated seawater causing all of the dissolved ions to become more concentrated. For example, brines often have high concentrations of Ca, Br, I, Sr, etc, etc. Isotopes in brines also reveal a lot about their past and can distinguish if a brine is a glacial water that has dissolved salt, or is evaporated seawater or has a hydrothermal component. There is just always more that you can find out about brines.

High and low pH waters: pH plays a huge role in dictating the chemistry of water and the dissolved salts therein. Around the world there are naturally occurring waters that have incredibly high and low pH’s. The low pH waters, typically around 1-3 on the pH scale, occur in areas where natural acid rock drainage is happening. Acid rock drainage, aka. ARD, happens when sulphide minerals, often pyrite, oxidize releasing sulphuric acid leading to seeps with exceedingly low pH’s. On the other hand, high pH waters occur more rarely. Alkali springs occur when water comes in contact with hydroxide minerals, such as calcium hydroxide. Hydroxides form in dry, arid environments or where organics and limestone have been heated and burned such as areas with volcanic activity. One famous alkali spring is the Maqarin site in Jordan where water with pH’s from 11-13 occur!

Hydrothermal waters: HOT, HOT, HOT! These waters are absolutely loaded with interesting chemistry. Spewing out of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor at temperatures of up to hundreds of degrees Celsius with tons and tons of dissolved metals like copper, lead, gold, zinc, silver, etc. Furthermore, many of the world’s metal deposits are related to the movement of hydrothermal fluids within the crust. Hydrothermal fluids get their heat from the mantle or magma chambers within the crust. As they are heated they dissolve the rocks in contact with then leading to highly enriched solute concentrations and then when they discharge and cool, the solutes precipitate leading to black smokers, or mineral precipitates in fractures in the crust.

Young and old waters: My last Water Underground post discussed this in more detail. Suffice it to say when you start analyzing carbon-14, tritium, chlorine-36, iodine-129, krypton-85 and 81, etc. you can find waters ranging in age from just a few years to tens of millions to billions of years old. Each of these, is worthy of a spot on my shelf that is for sure. Excitingly, each of these waters has a story to tell about its origin and experiences over the years. Analyzing these isotopes and putting them in context with the geologic history of where the water is found can explain a lot about the regional hydrologic cycle and how water recharges, and discharges and how vulnerable the aquifer it is housed in is to contamination or over-pumping.

This is just the tip of the iceberg (see above). There are many ways water is sorted into types, often called “facies”, which are then plotted graphically. Here is a nice paper that compares some of the different ways of plotting water [1]. Read all the way to the end an you’ll be rewarded with a somewhat strange smiling face.

Anyway, hopefully I’ve convinced you to grab a bottle and collect a sample or two when you come across an interesting water!

Finally, my only piece of advice if you’re going to start a water collection…make sure the top is screwed on tight.

Reference

[1] Güler, Cüneyt, et al. “Evaluation of graphical and multivariate statistical methods for classification of water chemistry data.” Hydrogeology journal 10.4 (2002): 455-474.

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Matt Herod is a Waste and Decommissioning Project Officer for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and an Adjunct Professor in Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Canada. To keep up to date with Matt, follow him on Twitter or on his own EGU blog GeoSphere!