Abstract
Groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interactions cover a broad range of hydrogeological and biological processes and are controlled by natural and anthropogenic factors at various spatio-temporal scales, from watershed to hyporheic/hypolentic zone. Understanding these processes is vital in the protection of groundwater-dependent ecosystems increasingly required in water resources legislation across the world. The use of environmental tracers and indicators that are relevant simultaneously for groundwater, surface water and biocenoses-biotope interactions constitutes a powerful tool to succeed in the management task. However, tracer type must be chosen according to the scale of interest and tracer use thus requires a good conceptual understanding of the processes to be evaluated. This paper reviews various GW-SW interaction processes and their drivers and, based on available knowledge, systemises application of conservative tracers and semi-conservative and reactive environmental indicators at different spatial scales. Biocenoses-biotopes relationships are viewed as a possible transition tool between scales. Relation between principal application of the environmental tracers and indicators, examples and guidelines are further proposed for examining GW-SW interactions from a hydrogeological and biological point of view by demonstrating the usability of the tracers/indicators and providing recommendations for the scientific community and decision makers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 813-827 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Environmental Earth Sciences |
Volume | 72 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 22 Dec 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Aug 2014 |
Bibliographical note
The work was carried out as part of the GENESIS project on groundwater systems (http://www.thegenesisproject.eu) financed by the European Commission 7FP contract 226536. The authors thank to four anonymous reviewers for their valuable remarks allowing the improvement of the manuscript.Keywords
- Environmental tracers
- Groundwater-dependent ecosystems
- GW-SW interaction
- Hyporheic zone
- Indicators