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Research - Category I: Hydrology, Climatology & Hydraulics
Study of Ground Water Dynamics in the Kern Alluvial Fan, California
(Funded 1999-2000)
Principal Investigators:
Jordan F. Clark
Department of Geological Sciences
UC Santa Barbara
(805) 893-7838
clark@geology.ucsb.edu
Hugo A. Loaiciga
Department of Geography
UC Santa Barbara
(805) 893-8053
hugo@geog.ucsb.edu
Executive Summary:
Ground water "banking" has become an important method for the conjunctive management of the state's and the nation's water resources. It consists of recharging stream flow into permeable aquifers during years of normal and surplus runoff and extracting the recharged ground water during dry years for beneficial use. One of the largest ground water banking operations in the United States takes place in Kern County, California and it has quickly become a prototype of sound ground water management practices in the arid lands of the western United States and other water-scarce regions of the world. The Kern Water Bank (KWB) presents favorable conditions for conducting innovative tracer/numerical studies whose results would render a fundamental understanding of ground water dynamics under artificial recharge conditions.
This project will 1) carry out a (field) experimental study of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) dissolved in ground water in the KWB to determine the rate of aquifer recharge in the study area; 2) test the validity of CFC-determined aquifer recharge by an independent analysis of 3H/3He ratios in ground water; 3) simulate ground water flow, CFC, and 3H/3He transport in the study area with a coupled ground water flow-transport model to develop an in-depth understanding of ground water flow dynamics and transport processes driven by basin-spreading recharge at the regional scale; 4) integrate tracer data and calibrated numerical model into educational workshop materials to be made available to the public via the Internet. This research proposes innovative modeling and experimental research of direct benefit to conjunctive use of California's and the nation's water resources.
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