Transforming Groundwater System and Critical Zone Mapping and Assessment in a ‘Big Data’ Environment

Our ability to explore, assess, monitor, and manage groundwater systems in the critical zone is being transformed by a range of new and/or improved geophysical and hydrogeophysical technologies including satellite, airborne, ground and borehole sensors, and supercomputing research infrastructure. Improved sensor technologies, including airborne electromagnetics (AEM) and ground magnetic resonance (GMR), provide an opportunity for rapid multi-scale mapping, measurement and monitoring of the physical state of the crust, including resolution of key elements of groundwater systems.

These advances in sensor technologies have been mirrored by the development of supercomputing research infrastructure which is now giving the groundwater research community access to high-resolution (spatial and temporal) biophysical datasets (e.g. climate, ecology, geoscience and geospatial) relevant to groundwater system and broader critical zone understanding. This infrastructure facilitates integration of multiple datasets and rapid and improved signal processing, inversion, and sophisticated analysis. These datasets provide a catalyst for collaboration, with inter-disciplinary approaches enabling new discovery science in a ‘big data’ environment, and enabling the qualitative and quantitative analysis and modelling of landscape and hydrological system processes. These advances are complemented by novel mathematical and statistical approaches that enable data mining, analysis and pattern-matching of large volume (spatial and temporal) datasets.

Recent investigations in Australia have successfully utilised both AEM and GMR technologies in groundwater resource exploration. These complementary technologies are ‘non-invasive’, and require limited heritage and environmental clearances, enabling rapid, cost-effective acquisition of key hydrogeological data in remote ‘frontier’ areas while minimising the need for expensive drilling. Integration of these data with other geospatial, geophysical, geological, hydrodynamic and hydrogeological data within a supercomputing environment is transforming groundwater resource exploration and assessment strategies. This novel approach has led to more cost-effective assessment of potential groundwater resources and managed aquifer recharge (MAR) targets in the western Murray Basin and the Kimberley Region of northern Australia.