Notes on

Groundwater & Hydrogeology

Pankaj K Mishra

Introduction- When rain falls to the ground, the water does not stop moving. Some of it
flows along the surface to streams or lakes, some of it is used by plants, some evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, and some sinks into the ground. Imagine pouring a glass of water onto a pile of sand. Where does the water go? The water moves into the spaces between the particles of sand. Groundwater is water that is found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil, sand and rock. Groundwater is stored in--and moves slowly through--layers of soil, sand and rocks called aquifers. Aquifers typically consist of gravel, sand, sandstone, or fractured rock, like limestone. These materials are permeable because they have large connected spaces that allow water to flow through. The speed at which groundwater flows depends on the size of the spaces in the soil or rock and how well the spaces are connected.

The area where water fills the aquifer is called the saturated zone (or saturation zone). The

top of this zone is called the water table. The water table may be located only a foot below the ground s surface or it can sit hundreds of feet down. Above the water table is the zone of aeration (also called the unsaturated zone). There is some water in the zone of aeration, but it will not flow into a well. So successful wells need to be deeper than the water table. There are two types of aquifers: confined and unconfined. Unconfined aquifers, generally located near the land surface, have no layers of clay (or other impermeable geologic material) above their water table, although they do lie above relatively impermeable clay beds. The upper limit of groundwater within an Unconfined aquifer is the water table. In many places, the water table is actually above the surface of land. Wetlands are a great example of where groundwater becomes surface water. Groundwater in an unconfined aquifer (sometimes called a water table aquifer ) is more vulnerable to contamination from surface pollution than a confined aquifer because pollutants on the land surface can enter the unconfined aquifer as water infiltrates the soil. Confined aquifers, on the other hand, have layers of impermeable material above and below them so they are contained within these layers. The geologic barriers cause the water to be under pressure.

Groundwater can be found almost everywhere. The water table may be deep or shallow; and may rise or fall depending on many factors. Heavy rains or melting snow may cause the water table to rise, or heavy pumping of groundwater supplies may cause the water table to fall. Water in aquifers is brought to the surface naturally through a spring or can be discharged into lakes and streams. Groundwater can also be extracted through a well drilled into the aquifer. A well is a pipe in the ground that fills with groundwater. This water can be brought to the surface by a pump. Shallow wells may go dry if the water table falls below the bottom of the well. Some wells, called artesian wells, do not need a pump because of natural pressures that force the water up and out of the well. Groundwater supplies are replenished, or recharged, by rain and snow melt. In some areas of the world, people face serious water shortages because groundwater is used faster than it is naturally replenished. In other areas groundwater is polluted by human activities. In areas where material above the aquifer is permeable, pollutants can readily sink into groundwater supplies. Groundwater can be polluted by landfills, septic tanks, leaky underground gas tanks, and from overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. If groundwater becomes polluted, it will no longer be safe to drink. Groundwater is used for drinking water by more than 50 percent of the people in the United States, including almost everyone who lives in rural areas. The largest use for groundwater is to irrigate crops.

Why it is Important??
y y y y y y y As a source of drinking water For irrigation Groundwater is also very important as it supplies springs, and much of the water in our ponds, marshland, swamps, streams, rivers and bays. Ground water is a part of water cycle. Ground water is a major part 98% of the available fresh water. Groundwater can sustain stream flow during dry periods, provides Base flow. The potential importance of groundwater as a resource is indicated by estimates of the world water balance. According to most estimates, saline oceans and seas account for 94% to 97.2 % of the world's water, while another 2.14% is held in glaciers and polar ice caps. Although groundwater constitutes only a few 0.61% by volume of the total water at or near the Earth's surface, estimated volumes of groundwater are much greater than the combined volumes in lakes and reservoirs, stream channels, and freshwater wetlands. Thus, it becomes apparent that groundwater makes up the majority of the world's utilizable freshwater resources, 98% volume approximately.

Storage and flow properties of geological materials

The amount of water stored in the saturated zone depends on the volume of pore space. This volume is quantified as the porosity, defined as the volume of pores divided by the total volume of the material. The porosity of typical geological materials can vary from less than 0.01 in relatively unfractured igneous or metamorphic rocks to more than 0.5 in silt or clay soils and sediments. High porosities are also found in some limestone and other carbonate rocks in which pores created by depositional processes or fracturing have been enlarged by dissolution of carbonate minerals. The wide range of porosity in geological materials translates into a wide range of water storage potential in the subsurface. Because porosity is determined to a large extent by the type of material, geological maps provide a useful starting point for many evaluations of groundwater resources. The rate at which water can move through the pore space of geological materials is obviously related to porosity, since the greater the volume of pores, the greater the open area through which water can flow. However, the ease with which water can move through a porous material, quantified by the property known as permeability, depends not only on the porosity, but also on the size of pores. Frictional resistance between water and solids where they are in contact at pore walls converts the mechanical energy of flowing water to heat, thereby limiting the rate of flow. For a given porosity, there is more contact area, and hence greater frictional resistance, for materials with smaller pores. In soils and sediments, the sizes of pores vary with sediment size and sorting. The effect of pore size on permeability dominates that of porosity. For example, a clay soil (particle size /< 0.04 mm) with a porosity of 0.5 typically has a permeability many orders of magnitude smaller than a sand (particle size 0.06 2 mm) with a porosity of only 0.3. Permeability also depends on the interconnectedness of the pore network. Relatively isolated pores, such as those created by gas bubbles in cooling lava, can make up a significant portion of the total porosity but will contribute little to flow. In groundwater resource evaluation it is often useful to distinguish between total porosity and the effective porosity, which includes only the well-connected pore space. Geological formations with sufficient porosity and permeability to supply water to wells are classified as aquifers. Formations through which very little flow can occur under normal conditions have been called aquicludes, a term suggesting the exclusion of water. Because geological materials are rarely (if ever) completely impermeable, many workers prefer to refer to low-permeability geological materials as aquitards, a term that implies retardation of flow rather than exclusion of water. In practice, the distinction between aquifers and aquitards is somewhat subjective, depending on the rates of flow required to meet water supply needs and on the range of permeability and porosities of the local formations.

Groundwater Pollution:
Groundwater is typically less polluted than surface water. Why?? Groundwater pollution is much less obvious than surface-water pollution (because earth acts like a filter), but is no less of a problem. In 1996, a study in Iowa in the United States found that over half the state's groundwater wells were contaminated with weed killers. There are also two different ways in which pollution can occur. Point-source pollution: the pollution which comes from a single location as- discharge pipe attached to a factory, oil spill from a tanker, a discharge from a smoke stack (factory chimney), or someone pouring oil from their car down a drain. A great deal of water pollution happens not from one single source but from many different scattered sources. This is called Nonpoint-source pollution. When point-source pollution enters the environment, the place most affected is usually the area immediately around the source. For example, when a tanker accident occurs, the oil slick is concentrated around the tanker itself and, in the right ocean conditions; the pollution disperses the further away from the tanker you go. This is less likely to happen with nonpoint source pollution which, by definition, enters the environment from many different places at once.Sometimes pollution that enters the environment in one place has an effect hundreds or even thousands of miles away. This is known as transboundary pollution. One example is the way radioactive waste travels through the oceans from nuclear reprocessing plants in England and France to nearby countries such as Ireland and Norway.

How can we measure water pollution when we cannot see it? How do we even know it's there?
There are two main ways of measuring the quality of water. One is to take samples of the water and measure the concentrations of different chemicals that it contains. If the chemicals are dangerous or the concentrations are too great, we can regard the water as polluted. Measurements like this are known as chemical indicators of water quality. Another way to measure water quality involves examining the fish, insects, and other invertebrates that the water will support. If many different types of creatures can live in a river, the quality is likely to be very good; if the river supports no fish life at all, the quality is obviously much poorer. Measurements like this are called biological indicators of water quality.

Groundwater Contamination: Sources & Causes

Groundwater contamination occurs when man-made products such as gasoline, oil, road salts and chemicals get into the groundwater and cause it to become unsafe and unfit for human use. Some of the major sources of these products, called contaminants, are storage tanks, septic systems, hazardous waste sites, landfills, and the widespread use of road salts, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals.

Storage tanks may contain gasoline, oil, chemicals, or other types of liquids and they can either be above or below ground. There are estimated to be over 10 million storage tanks buried in the United States and over time the tanks can corrode, crack and develop leaks. If the contaminants leak out and get into the groundwater, serious contamination can occur. Septic systems can be another serious contamination source. Septic systems are used by homes, offices or other buildings that are not connected to a city sewer system. Septic systems are designed to slowly drain away human waste underground at a slow, harmless rate. An improperly designed, located, constructed, or maintained septic system can leak bacteria, viruses, household chemicals, and other contaminants into the groundwater causing serious problems. In the United States today, there are thought to be over 20,000 known abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites and the numbers grow every year. Hazardous waste sites can lead to groundwater contamination if there are barrels or other containers lying around that are full of hazardous materials. If there is a leak, these contaminants can eventually make their way down through the soil and into the groundwater. Landfills are another major source of contamination. Landfills are the places that our garbage is taken to be buried. Landfills are supposed to have a protective bottom layer to prevent contaminants from getting into the water. However, if there is no layer or it is cracked, contaminants from the landfill (car battery acid, paint, household cleaners, etc.) can make their way down into the groundwater. The widespread use of road salts and chemicals is another source of potential groundwater contamination. Road salts are used in the wintertime to put melt ice on roads to keep cars from sliding around. When the ice melts, the salt gets washed off the roads and eventually ends up in the water. Chemicals include products used on lawns and farm fields to kill weeds and insects and to fertilize the plants. When the rain comes, these chemicals get washed into the ground and eventually into the water. We have to remember that since groundwater is part of the hydrologic cycle, contaminants in other parts of the cycle, such as the atmosphere or bodies of surface water, can eventually be transferred into our groundwater supplies.

Role of Groundwater in transporting petroleum & precipitating sedimentary ores:

The transport of dissolved chemical constituents, solutes, in groundwater is a significant component of many geologic processes. Transportation of solutes occurs primarily through three methods:
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Molecular diffusion is the diffusive flux of solutes along a concentration gradient. This process is driven by the random motion of ions in solution. Ions in a region of higher concentration will eventually mix with ions in a region of lower concentration to create an equal distribution in space. Advection is the movement of solutes with flowing groundwater where the solutes move at the same rate as the groundwater. Most economically-significant ore deposits exist because of advective transport of solutes and heat. These deposits are produced when groundwater circulates to depth, heats up, and dissolves a solute from throughout a large volume of rock. As the hot water moves into cooler areas of the crust, the dissolved substances are precipitated. If cooling occurs very quickly minerals will be precipitated in a very limited space (Skinner, 1979). Mechanical dispersion depends on a difference in solute concentration, as in molecular diffusion, but the mixing occurs as a result of the physical movement of water. Therefore, where concentrations differ, solutes are transported via molecular diffusion when flow velocities are low and by mechanical dispersal when flow velocities are high. Because mechanical dispersal is velocity dependent, it is controlled by the characters of the rock layer. Faster movement occurs in areas with larger pore spaces, shorter flow paths, and lower friction.

Groundwater as a nuisanceGroundwater is commonly considered as an elixir of human life; very seldom is groundwater considered and described as a nuisance. However , there are many circumstances where groundwater is causing considerable complications calling for tremendous human efforts in solving them, and there are many cases where groundwater has been responsible for disasters involving great losses of life and considerable economic loses. This pertains especially to the ventures where underground excavation is involved. Mining and tunneling are the two most important examples where overcoming of slow and/or sudden inflow has been a great problem in human history. Any excavation below the water table encounters groundwater flow however sometimes shallow excavations and building formation may encounter a flood by groundwater which might be due to over recharge of groundwater for a prolong period, so the rise in water table. The water table in alluvial sediments is typically shallow and its fluctuation depends on several factors. The major part of groundwater recharge into alluvial acquifers is direct infiltration of water from the stream. In cases of flooding, even when the surface stream remains under control, the excessive recharge to the aquifer can cause

a sudden rise of the water table above the normal level and lead to considerable damage by flooding basements in low elevation areas . Other problems, such as land subsidence and slope instability, arise from the change of fluid pressures in the ground-water rather than from the rate of ground-water flow itself. Pore pressure can change naturally as a consequence of excessive recharge or artificially as a consequence of excessive withdrawals of ground-water. An excessive recharge of certain strata and increased pore pressure very often causes instability of natural and man-made slopes and can trigger landslides. In the earth and rock fill dams pore pressure can develop from an uncontrolled ground-water f low through the dams. One of the less obvious and least understood forms of negative impact of groundwater is its role in the generation of earthquakes, which in concept is similar to that in the Generation of landslides. The fluid pressures that build up on faults are now thought to have a controlling influence on fault movements and the generation o f earthquakes (Freeze and Cherry 1979).

The hydrologic cycle

Evaporation Evaporation is the process where a liquid, in this case water, changes from its liquid state to a gaseous state. Liquid water becomes water vapor. Although lower air pressure helps promote evaporation, temperature is the primary factor. For example, all of the water in a pot left on a table will eventually evaporate. It may take several weeks. But, if that same pot of water is put on a stove and brought to a boiling temperature, the water will evaporate more quickly.

During the water cycle some of the water in the oceans and freshwater bodies, such as lakes and rivers, is warmed by the sun and evaporates. During the process of evaporation, impurities in the water are left behind. As a result, the water that goes into the atmosphere is cleaner than it was on Earth. Condensation Condensation is the opposite of evaporation. Condensation occurs when a gas is changed into a liquid. Condensation occurs when the temperature of the vapor decreases. When the water droplets formed from condensation are very small, they remain suspended in the atmosphere. These millions of droplets of suspended water form clouds in the sky or fog at ground level. Water condenses into droplets only when there are small dust particles

present around which the droplet can form. Precipitation When the temperature and atmospheric pressure are right, the small droplets of water in clouds form larger droplets and precipitation occurs. The raindrops fall to Earth. As a result of evaporation, condensation and precipitation, water travels from the surface of the Earth goes into the atmosphere, and returns to Earth again. Surface Runoff (over land flow+inter land flow) Much of the water that returns to Earth as precipitation runs off the surface of the land, and flows down hill into streams, rivers, ponds and lakes. Small streams flow into larger streams, then into rivers, and eventually the water flows into the ocean. Surface runoff is an important part of the water cycle because, through surface runoff, much of the water returns again to the oceans, where a great deal of evaporation occurs. Infiltration Infiltration is an important process where rain water soaks into the ground, through the soil and underlying rock layers. Some of this water ultimately returns to the surface at springs or in low spots downhill. Some of the water remains underground and is called groundwater. As the water infiltrates through the soil and rock layers, many of the impurities in the water are filtered out. This filtering process helps clean the water. Transpiration: One final process is important in the water cycle. As plants absorb water from the soil, the water moves from the roots through the stems to the leaves. Once the water reaches the leaves, some of it evaporates from the leaves, adding to the amount of water vapor in the air. This process of evaporation through plant leaves is called transpiration. In large forests, an enormous amount of water will transpire through leaves.

Zones of subsurface waterSoil water zoneVadose zoneSaturated zone-

Phase diagram-

The Hydrologic Equations-