Field estimates of groundwater discharge - Great Artesian Basin, South Australia

Abstract

Understanding the water balance of large groundwater systems is fundamental for the sustainable management of the resource. However, measuring many of the major components of the water balance pose considerable challenges and are thus estimated through modelling. A shortcoming of the modelling approach is that the water balance may have high bias and uncertainty due to insufficient information. The vertical leakage (i.e. discharge to upper aquifers or the unconfined water table) component of the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is an example of a poorly constrained but large component of the water balance of Australia's largest groundwater resource. This paper reports on the use of field measureme..