Groundwater Circulation Well for Controlling Saltwater Intrusion in Coastal aquifers: Numerical study with Experimental Validation

Om Prakash Vats, Bhrigumani Sharma, Juergen Stamm and Rajib Kumar Bhattacharjya ()
Additional contact information
Om Prakash Vats: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Bhrigumani Sharma: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Juergen Stamm: Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Technical Hydromechanics, Technical University Dresden
Rajib Kumar Bhattacharjya: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2020, vol. 34, issue 11, No 8, 3563 pages

Abstract: Abstract Saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers has become a prominent environmental concern worldwide. As such, there is a need to prepare and implement proper remediation techniques with careful planning of freshwater withdrawal systems for controlling saltwater intrusion in coastal marine and estuarine environments. This paper investigates the performance of groundwater circulation well (GCW) in controlling saltwater intrusion problems in unconfined coastal aquifers. The GCWs have been established as a promising in-situ remedial technique of contaminated groundwater. The GCW system creates vertical circulation flow by extracting groundwater from an aquifer through a screen in a single well and injecting back into the aquifer through another screen. The circulation flow induced by GCW force water in a circular pattern between abstraction and recharge screens and can be as a hydraulic barrier for controlling saltwater intrusion problem in coastal aquifers. In this study, an effort has been made to investigate the behavior of saltwater intrusion dynamics under a GCW. An experiment has been conducted in a laboratory-scale flow tank model under constant water head boundary conditions, and the variable-density flow and transport model FEMWATER is used to simulate the flow and transport processes for the experimental setup. The evaluation of the results indicates that there is no further movement of saltwater intrusion wedge towards the inland side upon implementation of GCW, and the GCW acts as a hydraulic barrier in controlling saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers. The present study reveals the GCWs system can effectively mitigate the saltwater intrusion problem in coastal regions and could be considered as one of the most efficient management strategies for controlling the problem.

Keywords: Unconfined coastal aquifer; Saltwater intrusion; Groundwater circulation well; Laboratory experiment; Numerical simulation; FEMWATER (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-020-02635-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:34:y:2020:i:11:d:10.1007_s11269-020-02635-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-020-02635-z

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().