Services / Water Resources Engineering
Groundwater Studies and Modeling
The significance of groundwater withdrawals and groundwater recharge to surface water supplies has become increasingly evident. Groundwater-surface water interactions are particularly critical in the water rights arena, where compacts and decrees are being reevaluated in light of new understanding of subsurface flows. These subsurface flows are generally unmeasured: advanced technical methods are often required to estimate them. Expertise in the fate and transport of groundwater contaminants is also becoming more valuable as communities that depend on wells strive to protect their water supplies.
Hydrosphere offers significant expertise in the study of groundwater-surface water interactions, groundwater movement, contaminant hydrology and vadose zone hydrology. Our experience ranges from field sampling to development of advanced 3-dimensional groundwater water models. We have designed and implemented monitoring-well networks, developed numerical models to simulate groundwater flow and contaminant transport, and constructed complex groundwater-surface water models. Hydrosphere has conducted dozens of studies of seepage losses, conveyance losses and ungaged subsurface inflows.
- Development of conjunctive surface/groundwater management strategies
- Characterization of aquifer properties
- Analysis of return flows from irrigation
- Development and maintenance of pumping databases
- Estimation of impacts of well pumping on water levels and surface water flows
- Analysis of artificial recharge techniques
- Design and implementation of pumping tests
- Development of mitigation measures to offset groundwater withdrawals
- Simulation of contaminant fate and transport in groundwater systems
- Stochastic modeling of groundwater flow and transport
- Vadose (unsaturated) zone hydrology, groundwater recharge, and contaminant migration above the water table
In addition to those services described above, our groundwater expertise includes: