Abstract
Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) was a pilot project for solving flood and drought problem in the northern part of Chao Phraya River basin, Thailand. This part of Thailand always faces flooding in rainy season and drought during dry season every year. The overexploitation of groundwater during dry season leads to continuously decline of water level in this area. In this project, the excessive surface water during rainy season was stored by injection of this treated surface water through recharge wells into the underground aquifers. This would serve to raise the water level, which can be extracted for use during the dry season. To assess the efficiency of the ASR process some tracers are required. The aim of this study is to prove the suitability of natural tracers to follow up the artificial recharge process; emphasis will be placed on Strontium (Sr) isotopic composition. The results showed that the change in 87Sr/86Sr ratios could be observed during an artificial recharge due to the different isotopic fingerprint of surface water and groundwater. However, the flow direction of the injected water cannot be clearly interpreted because of the limited number of monitoring wells, small distance between each monitoring well and the short duration of injection.
Highlights
The Upper Chao Phraya River basin is a mountainous area alternately with low land area along the river, which is located in the northern part of Thailand and covers the administrative area of Phichit, Pitsanulok and Sukhothai provinces
The basin is composed of four main sub-basins: Ping River, Wang River, Yom River and Nan River, which feed into the Chao Phraya River (Figure 1)
The aim of this study is to assess the use of strontium isotopes and rare earth elements (REE) to determine the flow paths during the artificial recharge of surface water into the aquifers
Summary
The Upper Chao Phraya River basin is a mountainous area alternately with low land area along the river, which is located in the northern part of Thailand and covers the administrative area of Phichit, Pitsanulok and Sukhothai provinces. The annual rainfall in this area ranges from 1000 to 1500 mm with 80% - 90% occurring between May and October [1]. This causes flooding in rainy season and drought during dry season every year, especially in the Yom River sub-basin. The Yom River is the only river in this basin with no storage dam to control the surface water. The construction of a storage dam on Yom River basin was recommended in 1973. The overexploitation of groundwater leads to the continuous decline of the groundwater level in this area
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