TY - JOUR
T1 - Challenges to estimate surface- and groundwater flow in arid regions
T2 - The Dead Sea catchment
AU - Siebert, Christian
AU - Rödiger, Tino
AU - Mallast, Ulf
AU - Gräbe, Agnes
AU - Guttman, Joseph
AU - Laronne, Jonathan B.
AU - Storz-Peretz, Yael
AU - Greenman, Anat
AU - Salameh, Elias
AU - Al-Raggad, Marwan
AU - Vachtman, Dina
AU - Zvi, Arie Ben
AU - Ionescu, Danny
AU - Brenner, Asher
AU - Merz, Ralf
AU - Geyer, Stefan
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the German Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF for granting the IWRM-Project “Sustainable Management of Water Resources (Quantity and Quality) in the Dead Sea Area (SUMAR)” (grant no. 02WM0848 ). We are also very grateful to the Dead Sea Rescue team, Megilot Dead Sea, Omar Cohen and Jake Ben Zaken from Ein Gedi for their strong logistic support. Furthermore, we thank Dr. Gavriel Weinberger, Dr. Amir Givati and Udi Galili (Hydrological Service of Israel) for providing spring discharge data of Ein Feshkha, Kane and Samar. We are grateful to Gordana Jovan Dević, Alexandra Pavlidou and 3 further anonymous reviewers who improved the manuscript significantly.
PY - 2014/7/1
Y1 - 2014/7/1
N2 - The overall aim of the this study, which was conducted within the framework of the multilateral IWRM project SUMAR, was to expand the scientific basement to quantify surface- and groundwater fluxes towards the hypersaline Dead Sea. The flux significance for the arid vicinity around the Dead Sea is decisive not only for a sustainable management in terms of water availability for future generations but also for the resilience of the unique ecosystems along its coast. Coping with different challenges interdisciplinary methods like (i) hydrogeochemical fingerprinting, (ii) satellite and airborne-based thermal remote sensing, (iii) direct measurement with gauging station in ephemeral wadis and a first multilateral gauging station at the river Jordan, (iv) hydro-bio-geochemical approach at submarine and shore springs along the Dead Sea and (v) hydro(geo)logical modelling contributed to the overall aim.As primary results, we deduce that the following:. (i)Within the drainage basins of the Dead Sea, the total mean annual precipitation amounts to 300mm a-1 west and to 179mm a-1 east of the lake, respectively.(ii)The total mean annual runoff volumes from side wadis (except the Jordan River) entering the Dead Sea is approximately 58-66×106 m3 a-1 (western wadis: 7-15×106 m3 a-1; eastern wadis: 51×106 m3 a-1).(iii)The modelled groundwater discharge from the upper Cretaceous aquifers in both flanks of the Dead Sea towards the lake amounts to 177×106 m3 a-1.(iv)An unexpected abundance of life in submarine springs exists, which in turn explains microbial moderated geo-bio-chemical processes in the Dead Sea sediments, affecting the highly variable chemical composition of on- and offshore spring waters.The results of this work show a promising enhancement of describing and modelling the Dead Sea basin as a whole.
AB - The overall aim of the this study, which was conducted within the framework of the multilateral IWRM project SUMAR, was to expand the scientific basement to quantify surface- and groundwater fluxes towards the hypersaline Dead Sea. The flux significance for the arid vicinity around the Dead Sea is decisive not only for a sustainable management in terms of water availability for future generations but also for the resilience of the unique ecosystems along its coast. Coping with different challenges interdisciplinary methods like (i) hydrogeochemical fingerprinting, (ii) satellite and airborne-based thermal remote sensing, (iii) direct measurement with gauging station in ephemeral wadis and a first multilateral gauging station at the river Jordan, (iv) hydro-bio-geochemical approach at submarine and shore springs along the Dead Sea and (v) hydro(geo)logical modelling contributed to the overall aim.As primary results, we deduce that the following:. (i)Within the drainage basins of the Dead Sea, the total mean annual precipitation amounts to 300mm a-1 west and to 179mm a-1 east of the lake, respectively.(ii)The total mean annual runoff volumes from side wadis (except the Jordan River) entering the Dead Sea is approximately 58-66×106 m3 a-1 (western wadis: 7-15×106 m3 a-1; eastern wadis: 51×106 m3 a-1).(iii)The modelled groundwater discharge from the upper Cretaceous aquifers in both flanks of the Dead Sea towards the lake amounts to 177×106 m3 a-1.(iv)An unexpected abundance of life in submarine springs exists, which in turn explains microbial moderated geo-bio-chemical processes in the Dead Sea sediments, affecting the highly variable chemical composition of on- and offshore spring waters.The results of this work show a promising enhancement of describing and modelling the Dead Sea basin as a whole.
KW - Dead Sea
KW - Groundwater flux
KW - Recharge simulations
KW - Submarine springs
KW - Surface runoff
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84900556674&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.04.010
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.04.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84900556674
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 485-486
SP - 828
EP - 841
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
IS - 1
ER -