Using Heat as a Tracer to Detect the Development of the Recharge Bulb in Managed Aquifer Recharge Schemes

Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), the intentional recharge of aquifers, has surged worldwide in last 60 years as one options to preserve and increase water resources availability. However, estimating extent area impacted by operations is not an obvious task. In this descriptive study, we monitored spatiotemporal variation groundwater temperature a phreatic aquifer before during MAR operations, for 15 days, at LIFE REWAT pilot infiltration basin using surface source. The study was carried out winter season, taking advantage existing marked difference between (cold, 8 13 °C, quasi-equilibrium with air temperature) temperature, ranging 10 18 °C. This heat then used tracer. Results show that experiment cold infiltrated moved through aquifer, allowing us identify development extension two dimensions plume resulting from operations. Forced convection dominant transport mechanism. Further data, be gathered high frequency, modeling analyses distribution different depths are needed evolution bulb three-dimensional space.