Geodetic tools for hydrogeological surveys: 3D-displacements above a fractured aquifer from GPS time series

Deep porous reservoirs are subject to charge and discharge of fluids (oil, gas or water), either naturally or induced by human exploitation. This leads to a variation in pressure inside the reservoir and consequently to a deformation of the overlying material. The knowledge of the ground surface displacements allows inferring the fluid migrations and the hydromechanical properties in the porous reservoir. Different kinds of geodetic tools are able to measure this AC C EP TE D M AN U SC R IP T ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT ground deformation: GPS, radar interferometry InSAR, tiltmeters or leveling. Each of them has its own spatial and time characteristics and accuracies that conduct to different kind of applications. After a review of the geodetic studies applied to hydrogeological processes, we describe two examples of GPS time series measurements above the granitic fractured aquifer of Ploemeur, located in French Brittany. These time series records the 3D-displacements induced by the sum of different processes. In this site, the involved processes are mainly the ground deformation related to piezometric level variations in the aquifer that we are looking for and the ocean tide loading that can reach several centimeters in the study area. We present the protocol of the GPS data survey and the processing strategy applied to extract the effect of hydrogeological process with sufficient accuracy. Two different experiments were studied: the long term deformation corresponding to seasonal hydrological cycle and the short term deformation associated to a pumping test. For a same variation in piezometric levels, the vertical ground displacements show larger amplitude for long term signal than for short one, indicating a behavior depending on the duration of the hydrogeological load. This difference of reactivity in time can be related to the heterogeneity of the studied aquifer. Finally, this work shows that geodetic measurements provide important constraints for characterizing aquifer-system response.