Drought Conditions Enhance Groundwater Table Fluctuations Caused by Hydropower Plant Management

M. Basilio Hazas, G. Marcolini, M. Castagna, M. Galli, T. Singh, B. Wohlmuth, G. Chiogna

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Management of hydropower plants strongly influences streamflow dynamics and hence the interaction between surface water and groundwater. As dam operations cause variations in river stages, these can result in changes in the groundwater level at multiple temporal scales. In this work, we study the case of an Alpine aquifer, where weekly fluctuations are particularly pronounced. We consider an area with four river reaches differently impacted by reservoir operations and investigate the influence of these rivers on the common aquifer. Using continuous wavelet transform and wavelet coherence analysis, we show that weekly fluctuations in the groundwater table are particularly pronounced in dry years, in particular in the winter season, although the area of the aquifer impacted by dam operations remains almost unchanged. We thus observe that in Alpine catchments, surface water-groundwater interaction is sensitive to the conditions determined by a specific hydrological year. We also investigate the influences of the river-aquifer water fluxes and show that under dry conditions hydropeaking mainly affects their temporal dynamics. Our observations have significant consequences for predicting nutrient and temperature dynamics/regimes in river-aquifer systems impacted by hydropower plant management.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2022WR032712
JournalWater Resources Research
Volume58
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2022

Keywords

  • groundwater modeling
  • hydropower
  • managed rivers
  • surface water-groundwater interaction

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