Groundwater and Global Palaeoclimate Signals (G@GPS)

Sylvi Haldorsen; Martine J. van der Ploeg; Dioni I. Cendón; Jianyao Chen; Najiba Chkir Ben Jemâa; Jason J. Gurdak; Roland Purtschert; Ofelia Tujchneider; Rein Vaikmäe; Marcela Perez; Kamel Zouari

doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2016/v39i4/103888

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Episodes 2016; 39(4): 556-567

Published online December 1, 2016

https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2016/v39i4/103888

Groundwater and Global Palaeoclimate Signals (G@GPS)

Sylvi Haldorsen¹, Martine J. van der Ploeg², Dioni I. Cendón^3,4, Jianyao Chen⁵, Najiba Chkir Ben Jemâa⁶, Jason J. Gurdak⁷, Roland Purtschert⁸, Ofelia Tujchneider⁹, Rein Vaikmäe¹⁰, Marcela Perez⁹, Kamel Zouari⁶

¹Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Environmental Sciences, P.O.Box5003, N-1433 AAs, Norway. E-mail: sylvi.haldorsen@nmbu.no
²Wageningen University, Centre for Soil Science Soil Physics and Land Management Group P.O. Box 47, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: martine.vanderploeg@wur.nl
³Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO), Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC, NSW 2232 Australia. E-mail: dce@ansto.gov.au
⁴Connected Water Initiative, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
⁵Department of Water Resources and Environment, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yatsen University, 135 Xingang Xi Road, Haizhu District, Guangzhou 510275. China, E-mail: chenjyao@mail.sysu.edu.cn or chenjianyao@hotmail.com
⁶Lab. of Radio-Analyses and Environment of the National School of Engineering, Adress : BP 1173 – Route de Soukra - 3038Sfax – Tunisie. E-mail: najiba_chkir@yahoo.fr; kamel.zouari@enis.rnu.tn
⁷Department of Earth & Climate Sciences, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA, USA. E-mail: jgurdak@sfsu.edu
⁸Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. E-mail: purtschert@climate.unibe.ch
⁹Faculty of Engineering and Water Sciences. NationalUniversity El Litoral. Ciudad Universitaria. Ruta Nacional 168 - Km.472,4. S300. Santa Fe. Argentina. E-mail: ofeliatujchneider@yahoo.com.ar; pichy@fich.unl.edu.ar; perezmarcelaa@gmail.com
¹⁰Institute of Geology, Tallinn University of Technology, 5 Ehitajate tee, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia. E-mail: Rein.Vaikmae@ttu.ee

Received: October 6, 2015; Accepted: February 29, 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Groundwater sources supply fresh drinking water to almost half of the World’s population and are a main source of water for irrigation across world. Characterization of groundwater resources, surfacegroundwater interactions and their link to the global water cycle and modern global change are important themes in hydrogeological research, whereas little attention has been given to the relation between groundwater and past climate variations. A groundwater system’s history is vital to assess its vulnerability under future and potentially adverse climatic changes. The scientific initiative Groundwater and Global Palaeoclimate Signals (G@GPS) investigates major recharge periods of large groundwater aquifers worldwide. We describe the findings for a major basin on each permanently inhabited continent and one with coastal influences in Australia. As palaeo-signals in groundwater are inherently low-resolution records, they can only be related to considerable amounts of recharge. Long periods with substantial groundwater recharge ought to be well identifiable in terrestrial records. Correlation with regional and global climate records may give ideas of the conditions under which such large amounts of recharge were initiated.