Designing a multi-scale sampling system of stream–aquifer interfaces in a sedimentary basin
Introduction
The stream–aquifer interface is nowadays considered a key transitional component characterized by a high spatio-temporal variability in terms of physical and biogeochemical processes (Brunke and Gonser, 1997, Krause et al., 2009). This interface needs further consideration for characterizing the hydrogeological behavior of basins (Hayashi and Rosenberry, 2002), and therefore continental hydrosystem functioning (Saleh et al., 2011).
From a conceptual point of view, stream–aquifer exchanges are driven by two main factors: the hydraulic gradient and the geological structure. The hydraulic gradient defines the water pathways (Winter, 1998), while the geological structure defines the conductive properties of the stream–aquifer interface (White, 1993, Dahm. et al., 2003). The timescale that is to be considered varies depending on the studied object (hyporheic zone itself or a sedimentary basin) (Harvey, 2002). The sampling frequency can also bias the quantification of processes (de Fouquet, 2012). Estimating the stream–aquifer exchanges at a sedimentary basin scale then requires the combination of various processes with different characteristic times or periods covering a wide range of temporal orders of magnitude (Blöschl and Sivapalan, 1995, Flipo et al., 2012, Massei et al., 2010): hour-day for river flow, year-decade for effective rainfall, decade-century for subsurface transit time. To address this, models are used as spatio-temporal interpolators.
Studying stream–aquifer interface thus requires to couple multi-scale sampling and monitoring strategies, spatio-temporal data analysis, interpretations and interpolations, as well as modeling techniques (Fig. 1). Many sampling methods are available that aim at understanding the stream–aquifer interactions (Kalbus et al., 2006). Most of them are indirect methods, which permit the localization and identification of the exchanges. Almost all of these methods are site specific and do not solely allow for quantifying water exchanges along the stream network, which requires a pluridisciplinary (Sophocleous, 2002, Winter, 1998, Woessner, 2000), multi-scale (Scanlon et al., 2002) approach to limit the errors and to validate the estimations (Fleckenstein et al., 2010). Among a selection of 39 papers dealing with multi-scale or/and multi-measurement stream–aquifer interaction studies (Table 1), only Kikuchi et al. (2012) integrate the three major spatial scales of interest (Fig. 1): hydrosystem, reach and HZ scales.
The goal of this paper is to provide a methodological framework to build up a multi-scale sampling network of stream–aquifer water exchanges that integrates the idea of spatially telescoping measurements (Kikuchi et al., 2012). The sampling network has to be coupled with data analysis and interpolations to provide temporally dense punctual datasets, the hydrogeological structure of the multi-layer sedimentary basin, the structure of the hyporheic zone (HZ), as well as spatial distributions of hydraulic head. These raw and interpreted data are used to run models of the whole hydrosystem and of a peculiar HZ (Fig. 1) in a second step.
In the first part, the hydrosystem of the Orgeval basin is presented together with the methods used to assess (i) the regional piezometric head distribution using geostatistics, (ii) the regional structure of the basin, and (iii) the connectivity status of stream–aquifer at five different locations of the stream network using various geophysical investigations and drilling core analysis. In the second part, the results of the data analysis and interpolations of those data are presented. In the final part, the design of the multi-scale sampling system is presented, with a special emphasis on the HZ monitoring stations. Preliminary results of temperature measurements coupled with a thermo–hydro finite element model show evidence of advective water fluxes from aquifer to stream, which proves the pertinence of the proposed framework.
Section snippets
Experimental site: multi-layer aquifer system
With an area of 104 km2, the Orgeval experimental basin is located 70 km east from Paris (Flipo et al., 2007b, Flipo et al., 2007a, Kurtulus et al., 2011). Agriculture takes place on 80% of its surface while the remaining 20% are forested. The average annual air temperature is 9.7 °C. Over the 1963–2010 period, the annual mean rainfall is 658 mm (with standard deviation of 111 mm) and the annual mean potential evaporation is 592 mm. The basin is relatively flat with slopes increasing near the small
Spatio-temporal distribution of the Piezometric Head
For each campaign, a variogram model is fitted to the experimental one. Each variogram model is composed of a nugget effect and two spherical components (Table 2). The low nugget effect reflects the fact that the piezometric head distribution is highly structured spatially. However, the range and the sill values of the adopted models differ for each snapshot campaign significantly.
The maps of piezometric head distribution display coherent drainage patterns with isocontours that get closer to
Design of the multi-scale sampling system
The multi-scale sampling system involves an upgrade of the monitoring system of the regional flow in the plateau, as well as the definition and the installation of the local monitoring stations (LMSs) aiming at connecting the regional flow to the HZ. The experimental sampling system benefits from the ORACLE facilities, which have been developed at the Orgeval basin scale for 50 years (http://bdoracle.irstea.fr/). It is composed of 8 stream gauging stations, 11 piezometers and 5 meteorological
Conclusion
In this paper, a general methodological framework (Fig. 1) is developed to study the stream–aquifer interactions in the context of sedimentary basin (multi-layer aquifer system). The framework integrates the multi-dimensionality of the problem at hand from both the experimental and the modeling perspectives. The ability of the framework to design a multi-scale sampling system of hydrogeophysical parameters is demonstrated. The development of such a system requires a pluridisciplinary approach,
Acknowledgments
This research is equally supported by the ONEMA NAPROM project and the workpackage “Stream–Aquifer Interfaces” of the PIREN Seine research program. It is a contribution to the GIS ORACLE (Observatoire de Recherche sur les bassins versants ruraux Amnags, pour les Crues, les Etiages et la qualit de l’eau) that maintains the experimental facilities of the Orgeval. Most of the authors belongs to the FIRE FR3020 (CNRS/UPMC, Fédération Ile-de-France de Recherche en Environnement). We kindly thank J.
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