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Freshwater lens assessment of karst island water resources: towards an interdisciplinary protocol

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posted on 2022-08-01, 09:01 authored by Robert DiFilippo, Lee Bosher, Carlos Primo David

Fresh groundwater lenses on karstic oceanic islands form a vital resource sustaining local populations. However, this resource is susceptible to saltwater intrusion through human drivers (over-abstraction) and natural processes (variable precipitation and storm surges). There is a paucity of means to assess the risks that freshwater lenses are exposed to. This is partly driven by a poor understanding of the root causes of saltwater intrusion, which leads to potentially inappropriate freshwater management strategies.

Thus, effective management of these freshwater lenses requires a baseline understanding of the processes that drive saltwater intrusion and the degradation of freshwater lenses, and the temporal and spatial variability of these processes. Dynamics of such freshwater lenses involve an interplay between physical, chemical, and socio-economic processes; therefore, finding a solution necessitates an interdisciplinary approach and a range of data collection strategies. This approach was formalized in a Freshwater Lens Assessment Protocol (FLAP). Results from the research developed and tested on Bantayan Island in the Philippines reveals a sufficient freshwater lens to support the current and projected population; however, local officials are operating abstraction wells from the wrong locations on the island. Such locations are utilized due to ease of access to existing infrastructure and government boundaries, but do not consider technical factors that influence saltwater intrusion. FLAP is an appropriate, cost-effective, interdisciplinary tool that uses a pragmatic approach to data collection, interpretation, and integration into an observational model. Continuous adjustments are possible through ongoing monitoring of the model, offering opportunities to evaluate the efficacy of resource management strategies.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

Waterlines

Volume

41

Issue

2

Pages

107 - 124

Publisher

Practical Action Publishing

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This Open Access article is published by Practical Action Publishing and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No-derivatives CC BY-NC-ND licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Visit www.practicalactionpublishing.com for more information.

Acceptance date

2022-01-24

Publication date

2022-07-14

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

0262-8104

eISSN

1756-3488

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Lee Bosher. Deposit date: 28 July 2022

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