Assessing Groundwater Geospatial Variation Using Microgravity Investigation in the Arid Riyadh Metropolitan Area, Saudi Arabia: a Case Study

A combination of relative microgravity measurements at ground surface, and depth to water and water table measurements from adjacent wells were used to estimate geospatial variation of groundwater. A highly accurate portable Grav-Map gravimeter was used for gravimetric measurements at locations nearby a 42 well water table monitoring program. To efficiently correlate the two data sets, wells were clustered into five groups by geological unit and water saturation. Microgravity data was processed, interpreted, and correlated with both the depths to groundwater and the water table levels. Regression analyses revealed a strong negative correlation for microgravity and depth to groundwater in all five clusters; correlation coefficients varied between 0.70 and 0.97, and measured 0.78 over the entire study area. Microgravity values increased as groundwater depth decreased, likely because rising groundwater fills voids and fractures within soil and rocks, increasing rock density and therefore relative gravity. To validate the correlation, we superimposed a map of depths to water on the first derivative of microgravity measurements. The shallowest groundwater depths were positively related to the zero first derivatives, having intersection areas within a 75 % significance interval. Negative first derivatives covered the rest of the study area, with relative gravity decreasing with increasing groundwater depth. This technique can precisely and efficiently determine changes in subsurface geology and geospatial changes in depths to the groundwater table. Distances between microgravity stations should be small, to better detect small changes in gravity values, reflecting density contrasts underground.