Characterization of changes in groundwater storage in the Lachlan Catchment, Australia, derived from observations of surface deformation and groundwater level data

Article


Razeghi, Mahdiyeh, Tregoning, Paul, Shirzaei, Manoochehr, Ghobadi-Far, Khosro, McClusky, Simon and Renzullo, Luigi. 2022. "Characterization of changes in groundwater storage in the Lachlan Catchment, Australia, derived from observations of surface deformation and groundwater level data." Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 127 (12). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB024669
Article Title

Characterization of changes in groundwater storage in the Lachlan Catchment, Australia, derived from observations of surface deformation and groundwater level data

ERA Journal ID210884
Article CategoryArticle
AuthorsRazeghi, Mahdiyeh, Tregoning, Paul, Shirzaei, Manoochehr, Ghobadi-Far, Khosro, McClusky, Simon and Renzullo, Luigi
Journal TitleJournal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
Journal Citation127 (12)
Number of Pages24
Year2022
PublisherJohn Wiley & Sons
Place of PublicationUnited States
ISSN2169-9313
2169-9356
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB024669
Web Address (URL)https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JB024669
Abstract

Global Positioning System (GPS) deformation measurements were combined with groundwater level data to examine the spatiotemporal variability of groundwater storage in the Lachlan catchment located in central New South Wales (Australia). After correcting for effects of glacial isostatic adjustment, non-tidal oceanic and atmospheric loading as well as hydrologic loading using existing models, we show that the seasonal and interannual variability of ground deformation and hydraulic head level data, extracted using wavelet time-frequency analysis, exhibits an in-phase behavior, indicating that the observed surface deformation is the poroelastic response to groundwater pressure change in aquifer system. Combination of GPS displacement and groundwater level change enables the estimation of elastic skeletal specific storage coefficients, which were then used for estimating groundwater storage changes. The estimated groundwater storage changes clearly reflect the four climate events of the Lachlan catchment since 1996: (a) the Millennium drought over 1996–2009, (b) the 2011–2012 La Nina and two significant floods in 2012 and 2016, (c) the drought conditions from mid-2017 to late-2019, and (d) the return of La Nina conditions since early 2020. We also found annual and long-term groundwater storage variations of respectively urn:x-wiley:21699313:media:jgrb55985:jgrb55985-math-0001 and urn:x-wiley:21699313:media:jgrb55985:jgrb55985-math-0002 over the period 2012–2021. Moreover, we show that groundwater level fluctuations can be predicted from GPS displacement measurements and storage coefficients with sufficient accuracy (80% correlation and 70% RMS reduction when compared in terms of seasonal cycle). This study provides essential information that can contribute to future groundwater planning, management, and control over the Australian continent.

Contains Sensitive ContentDoes not contain sensitive content
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020370402. Earth and space science informatics
Byline AffiliationsAustralian National University
Virginia Tech, United States
Geoscience Australia
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