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Understanding groundwater recharge is essential for successful management of water resources and modeling fluid and contaminant transport within the subsurface. This book provides a critical evaluation of the theory and assumptions that underlie methods for estimating rates of groundwater recharge. Detailed explanations of the methods are provided - allowing readers to apply many of the techniques themselves without needing to consult additional references. Numerous practical examples highlight benefits and limitations of each method. Approximately 900 references allow advanced practitioners to pursue additional information on any method. For the first time, theoretical and practical considerations for selecting and applying methods for estimating groundwater recharge are covered in a single volume with uniform presentation. Hydrogeologists, water-resource specialists, civil and agricultural engineers, Earth and environmental scientists and agronomists will benefit from this informative and practical book. It can serve as the primary text for a graduate-level course on groundwater recharge or as an adjunct text for courses on groundwater hydrology or hydrogeology. For the benefit of students and instructors, problem sets of varying difficulty are available at http://wwwbrr.cr.usgs.gov/projects/GW_Unsat/Recharge_Book/
List of contents
Preface; 1. Groundwater recharge; 2. Water-budget methods; 3. Modeling methods; 4. Methods based on surface-water data; 5. Physical methods - unsaturated zone; 6. Physical methods - saturated zone; 7. Chemical tracer methods; 8. Heat tracer methods; 9. Linking estimation methods to conceptual models of groundwater recharge; References; Index.
About the author
For more than thirty years, Richard W. Healy has been conducting research for the US Geological Survey on groundwater recharge, water budgets of natural and human-impacted hydrologic systems, and fluid and contaminant transport through soils. He has taught numerous short courses on unsaturated zone flow and transport, and groundwater flow modelling. He first presented a short course on methods for estimating recharge in 1994, and over the intervening fifteen years the course has been presented to several hundred professionals and students. The material in that course has been expanded and refined over the years and forms the basis of Estimating Groundwater Recharge. Healy has authored more than sixty scientific publications and is developer of the VS2DI suite of models for simulating water, solute, and heat transport through variably saturated porous media. He is a member of the Soil Science Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the Geological Society of America.
Summary
An evaluation of the theory and assumptions underlying methods for estimating rates of groundwater recharge. Hydrogeologists, water-resource specialists, civil and agricultural engineers, Earth and environmental scientists and agronomists will benefit from this informative and practical book, which is also a useful adjunct text for advanced courses in groundwater or hydrogeology.
