Water Use and Reuse Stream Projects

Research into well clogging mechanisms in alluvial ASR

Introduction

Most Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) operations in Australia have largely focussed on limestone or fractured rock aquifers, with results that have been generally successful. However, from a well clogging perspective, limestone aquifers are the more tolerant of poorer source water quality due to the offsetting effect of matrix dissolution. Although fractured rock aquifers are more complex to characterise in terms of permeability structure and storativity, detailed studies have not yet been conducted, apparently because these sites have been operating successfully.

Unconsolidated fine-grained aquifers present challenges for ASR to ensure the injectivity of ASR wells and the quality of recovered water. In Australia and elsewhere, opportunities to enhance groundwater resources through ASR are being lost in regions where unconsolidated alluvial aquifers represent the predominant target unit and excess waters are in seasonal abundance.

The current research is focussed at two sites, the Urrbrae wetlands, South Australia and the Rossdale golf course, Victoria.

Objectives/Scope/Activities

The project is linked with several others to help fill in basic missing information that is inhibiting ASR in unconsolidated aquifers. This includes developing new measures of clogging potential of untreated, partially treated and treated waters which are the ‘new’ source waters for urban water supplies.

Thus, the proposed activities are to:

• Develop water quality thresholds for new urban water sources suitable for unconsolidated aquifers.
• Optimise treatment methods to obtain the desired water quality.
• To link these results with those of the related projects on impacts of water quality on clogging of porous media.
• To operationalise ASR in an unconsolidated aquifer.

Key Staff

Declan Page, Steve Wakelin, Karen Barry, Peter Dillon, Henning Prommer  

Partners

• SKM

Timeline

2005- 2008

Links

• Urrbrae high school