ASSESSING CATCHMENT-SCALE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF GROUNDWATER AND STREAM SALINITY

Abstract

Understanding catchment-scale patterns of groundwater and stream salinity are important in land- and water-salinity management. A large-scale assessment of groundwater and stream data was undertaken in the eastern Mt Lofty Ranges of South Australia using geographical information systems (GIS), regional scale hydrologic data, hydrograph separation and hydrochemical techniques. Results of the study show: (1) salts were mostly of marine origin (75%), while sulfate and bicarbonate from mineral weathering comprised most of the remainder, (2) elevated groundwater salinities and stable water isotopic compositions similar to mean rainfall indicated that plant transpiration was the primary salt accumulation mechanism, (3) key factors explaining groundwater salinity were geology and rainfall, with overall catchment salinity inversely proportional to average annual rainfall, and groundwater salinity ‘hotspots’ (EC >8 mS/cm) associated with geological formations comprising sulfidic marine siltstones and shales, (4) shallow groundwater correlated with elevated stream salinity, implying that baseflow contributed to stream salt loads, with most of the annual salt load (estimated to be 24,500 tonnes) occurring in winter when baseflow volume was highest. Salt-load analysis using stream data could be a practical, low-cost technique to rapidly target the investigation of problem areas within a catchment.