Basic concepts on the environmental role of groundwater and the effects of its development
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21701/bolgeomin.119.1.008Keywords:
environment, exploitation, groundwater, interferencesAbstract
Groundwater is an essential part of the hydrological cycle. It is characterized by the long residence time, ubiquity and small variability. Chemical, flow characteristics and properties have to be considered taking into account the three-dimensional behavior of the system. The stable flow and small variability of chemical properties have a fundamental role in geological and biological processes and, as a consequence, they have important environmental implications, such as sustaining river and spring base flow, wetlands, phreatophyte plant communities, gallery forests, …, and also they are essential to satisfy human needs. The use of groundwater implies changing the flow pattern, which may result in water-table and piezometric level drawdown, decrease of water discharge, and chemical composition changes, besides subsidence in some cases. All this modify the environmental conditions, leading to flow decrease, phreatophyte plant surface area, drying of wetlands and biological modifications related to chemical changes. However, these modifications may appear longdelayed and at a very slow pace. Even the case-effect relationships may not be easily seen. Negative impacts have to be compared to social benefits from development and also to the impacts of other alternatives. This includes taking into account the possible remediation of negative delayed effects and their costs. Aquifer salinization and contamination is an important issue to be taken into account, since groundwater will soon or later contact the environment taking with it the contaminants.
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