Abstract:
Imaging of groundwater that interacts with surface watercourses is essential for providing
detail needed to accurately manage both resources. It is particularly important where one resource is saline
or otherwise polluted, where spatial quantification of the interacting resources is critical to water use
planning and where losses from surface waterways need to be minimized in order to transport water long
distances. Geo-electric arrays or transient electromagnetic devices can be towed along watercourses to
image electrical conductivity (BC) at multiple depths within and beneath those watercourses. It has been
found that in such environments, EC is typically related primarily to groundwater salinity and secondarily
to clay content. Submerged geo-electric arrays can detect detailed canal-bottom variations if correctly
designed. Floating arrays pass obstacles easily and are good for surveying constricted rivers and canals.
Transient electromagnetic devices detect saline features clearly but have inferior ability to detect fine
changes just below beds of watercourses. All require that water depth be measured by sonar or pressure
sensors for successful elimination of effects of the water layer on the data. Presentation of the data using a
3D presentation technique where EC is imaged along vertical ribbons drawn along the watercourse; is
almost essential for handling the data produced because the meandering paths of rivers and canals
combined with the shear volume of data typically acquired results in a gee-referencing dilemma that cannot
be accommodated using traditional presentation techniques.
An extensive set of EC Imaging case studies, distributed across canals and rivers of the Australian
Murray-Darling Basin, has been collected. They reveal the interaction of various rivers and canals with the
underlying groundwater resources. At some sites, watercourses cross prior iver channel sands that are
being recharged and are suitable for use as water storages with low evaporation losses. Canals and
reservoirs that cross such prior river channel sands can be sealed but, with geophysical assistance in
mapping aquifers, development of underground water storages with controlled recharge may be more
lucrative. At some other sites, little connection between aquifers and surface watercourses is evident.
Finally, at downstream ends of geological basins, sites where saline groundwater flows into, or is on the
verge of flowing into rivers are evident.
