Groundwater in the Environment

Paul L. Younger (PhD C.Geol. C.Eng.) is HSBC Professor of Environmental Technologies at the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, where he directs water research within the Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability, and is also a Director of the leading groundwater control contracting company, Project Dewatering Ltd. His groundwater engineering experience spans more than 20 years and six continents, ranging from hand-digging water wells with indigenous communities in the Americas, through sophisticated numerical modelling of pollutant migration in aquifers, to the design of novel remediation systems for extremely contaminated groundwaters.

• Preface. Acknowledgments.1. Occurrence of Water Underground.1.1. Groundwater and the Global Water Cycle.1.2. The Natural Zonation of Water Underground.1.3. Water Pressure, the Saturated Zone, Aquifers, and Aquitards.1.4. Aquifer Properties: Effective Porosity, Permeability, Storage.1.5. The Geology of Groundwater Occurrence.2. Sources of Groundwater: Recharge Processes.2.1. Provenance of Groundwater.2.2. Recharge Processes.2.3. Movement of Water through the Unsaturated Zone.3. Groundwater Movement.3.1. “The Force that Drives the Water through the Rocks”.3.2. Quantifying Flow Rates: Darcy’s Law and Hydraulic Conductivity.3.3. Groundwater Flow Patterns.3.4. Quantifying the Hydraulic Properties of Aquifers.4. Natural Groundwater Quality.4.1. How to Read a Water Analysis.4.2. Chemical Characteristics of Natural Groundwaters: Origins and Significance.4.3. Displaying and Classifying Groundwater Quality.4.4. The evolution of Natural Groundwater Quality.5. Groundwater Discharge and Catchment Hydrology.5.1. Groundwater Discharge Features.5.2. The role of Groundwater in Generating Surface Runoff.5.3. Estimating the Groundwater Component of Catchment Runoff.5.4. Physical Controls on Groundwater Discharge at the Catchment Scale.6. Groundwater and Freshwater Ecosystems.6.1. Freshwater Ecosystems.6.2. Groundwater-fed Wetland Ecosystems.6.3. Fluvial Ecosystems and the Hyporheic Zone.6.4. Groundwater Ecology.7. Groundwater as a Resource.7.1. Current Resource Utilization of Groundwater.7.2. Constraints on Groundwater Utility.7.3. Methods of Groundwater Abstraction.7.4. Conjunctive use of Groundwaters with Surface Waters.7.5. Groundwater as a Thermal Resource.8. Groundwater Hazards.8.1. Geohazards and Hydro-geohazards.8.2. Natural Hydro-geohazards.8.3. Hydro-geohazards Induced by Human Activities.9. Groundwater Under Threat.9.1. Threats to Groundwater Systems.9.2. Depletion of Groundwater Quantity.9.3. Degradation of Groundwater Quality.10. Modeling Groundwater Systems.10.1. Why Simulate Groundwater Systems?.10.2. Conceptual Models.10.3. Representing the Conceptual Model Mathematically.10.4. Ways of Doing the Sums: Solving Physically Based Models.10.5. One Step Beyond: Simulating Groundwater Quality.10.6. Groundwater Modeling In Practice.11. Managing Groundwater Systems.11.1. Approaches to Groundwater Resource Management.11.2. Towards Sustainable Groundwater Development.11.3. Groundwater Control Measures to Mitigate Geohazards.11.4. Preventing Groundwater Contamination.11.5. Remediating Contaminated Groundwaters.References.Glossary.Index

"What a pleasure this book is! If you teach introductory hydrogeology to students of any discipline, then this book, by Paul Younger, is the one to recommend to your students as precourse or supplementary reading. If they read it, you will not need to give any lectures explaining the context, concepts, or issues...Put it at the top of your courses’ reading lists!" (David Lerner Groundwater Protection and Restoration Group, University of Sheffield, Groundwater Vol. 45, No. 3 2007)