Artificial Recharge, Ground Water Modeling, and Management of the Coastal Aquifer of Santa Marta, Colombia

The city of Santa Marta is located in the northern part of Colombia on the Caribbean coast, and in the past up to the 90s decade, this area depended mainly on ground water for potable supplies, specially in the dry season. The city is located over the aquifer, composed of quaternary deposits from the alluvial terraces of the Manzanares and Gaira Rivers and their tributaries, which are the main source of recharge source.

Since the water demand increases and there is a lack of surface water supplies, the aquifer is used extensively. Therefore, various ground water management plans were implemented in the past in order to solve problems of sea water intrusion near the coast, local contamination with sewage, and local overexploitation.

The aquifer is not too extensive, its areal extension is approximately 50 Km2, and the mean depth is 32 m, varying from a few meters to a maximum depth of  114 m.  Several studies were done in the past; in 1992 to 1996 implementing the conjunctive use of ground and surface water.  Such study included the construction of a pilot artificial recharge structure on the Manzanares River with a new well field for induced stream infiltration and aquifer storage recovery. Recently, other works were done to increase the recharge from river, and new ground water models were developed, including the fresh-sea water interface, to simulate various scenarios of artificial, induced recharge and sea water intrusion.