Geophysical Exploration of the Solidaridad Municipality, Riviera Maya, Mexico

As water availability in Mexico is decreasing (Marín et al, 2014), there has been strong interest in developing hydrogeologic reserves, particularly in the Peninsula of Yucatan. Escolero and others (2005) proposed a hydrogeologic reserve for NorthWestern Yucatan Peninsula. Other scientists both from the Centro de Invesitación Científica de Yucatán and from the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán have been conducting studies to identify potential sites for reserves for the City of Merida, in the State of Yucatan.

In this abstract, we present the results of the geophysical exploration in the Municipality of Solidaridad, which is located in the Riviera Maya. This area is one of the fastest growing urban areas in Latin America. Thus, assessing groundwater resources in the region is critically important for the future of this region.

Throughout the area there are numerous sinkholes, locally known as cenotes. We were able to field truth the vertical electrical soundings at one of the sinkholes. In this particular case, we have a very thin unsaturated zone, followed by approximately 12 meters of fresh water. The fresh/salt water interface is less than one meter thick.

We also surveyed a number of wells and we tied in our survey to INEGI´s (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática) first-order survey benchmark close to the study area. Thus, we were able to calculate the thickness of the freshwater lens using both the Ghyben-Herzberg ratio, and the geophysical exploration.