Using GRACE to quantify the depletion of terrestrial water storage in Northeastern Brazil: The Urucuia Aquifer System.

Covering a plateau area of approximately 125,000 km2, the Urucuia Aquifer System (UAS) represents a national strategic water resource in the drought-stricken Northeastern part of Brazil. Variations in terrestrial water storage (TWS) extracted using a three-model-ensemble from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission showed a negative balance equal to water stress. Monthly GRACE-derived water storage changes from 2002 to 2014 were compared with those derived from an independent hydrologic water balance of the region using in situ measurements and estimated evapotranspiration rates. Trend analyses revealed a TWS depletion rate of 6.5 ±â€¯2.6 mm yr-1, but no significant decline in precipitation as observed from available data records. Water storage depletion was found to be driven by anthropogenic impacts rather than by natural climatic variability. The obtained results demonstrate that GRACE is able to adequately capture water storage changes at the subregional scale, particularly during dry seasons.

Quasi-Saturated Layer: Implications for Estimating Recharge and Groundwater Modeling.

This study presents an extension of the concept of "quasi-saturation" to a quasi-saturated layer, defined as the uppermost dynamic portion of the saturated zone subject to water table fluctuations. Entrapped air here may cause substantial reductions in the hydraulic conductivity (K) and fillable pore water. Air entrapment is caused by a rising water table, usually as a result of groundwater recharge. The most significant effects of entrapped air are recharge overestimation based on methods that use specific yield (Sy ), such as the water table fluctuation method (WTF), and reductions in K values. These effects impact estimation of fluid flow velocities and contaminant migration rates in groundwater. In order to quantify actual groundwater recharge rates and the effects of entrapped air, numerical simulations with the FEFLOW (Version 7.0) groundwater flow model were carried out using a quasi-saturated layer for a pilot area in Rio Claro, Brazil. The calculated recharge rate represented 16% of the average precipitation over an 8-year period, approximately half of estimates using the WTF method. Air entrapment amounted to a fillable porosity of 0.07, significant lower that the value of 0.17 obtained experimentally for Sy . Numerical results showed that the entrapped air volume in the quasi-saturated layer can be very significant (0.58 of the air fraction) and hence can significantly affect estimates of groundwater recharge and groundwater flow rates near the water table.