Components of Groundwater

Describe critical components of groundwater

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN TO DO

 Differentiate between groundwater and the water table

 Describe how groundwater is affected by porosity and permeability of geologic
materials with respect to different types of aquifers.
 Compare and contrast potential well use within various types of aquifers.
 Identify issues with groundwater withdrawal
 Describe issues with the quality of groundwater and keeping water clean

Groundwater

Although this may seem surprising, water beneath the ground is commonplace. Usually
groundwater travels slowly and silently beneath the surface, but in some locations it
bubbles to the surface at springs. The products of erosion and deposition by
groundwater were described in the Erosion and Deposition chapter.

Groundwater is the largest reservoir of liquid fresh water on Earth and is found
in aquifers, porous rock and sediment with water in between. Water is attracted to the
soil particles and capillary action, which describes how water moves through a porous
media, moves water from wet soil to dry areas.

Aquifers are found at different depths. Some are just below the surface and some are
found much deeper below the land surface. A region may have more than one aquifer
beneath it and even most deserts are above aquifers. The source region for an aquifer
beneath a desert is likely to be far from where the aquifer is located; for example, it may
be in a mountain area.

The amount of water that is available to enter groundwater in a region is influenced by

the local climate, the slope of the land, the type of rock found at the surface, the
vegetation cover, land use in the area, and water retention, which is the amount of
water that remains in the ground. More water goes into the ground where there is a lot
of rain, flat land, porous rock, exposed soil, and where water is not already filling the soil
and rock.

The residence time of water in a groundwater aquifer can be from minutes to thousands
of years. Groundwater is often called “fossil water” because it has remained in the
ground for so long, often since the end of the ice ages.
Aquifers

Features of an Aquifer

To be a good aquifer, the rock in the aquifer must have good:

 porosity: small spaces between grains

 permeability: connections between pores

This animation shows porosity and permeability. The water droplets are found in the
pores between the sediment grains, which is porosity. When the water can travel
between ores, that’s permeability.

To reach an aquifer, surface water infiltrates downward into the ground through tiny
spaces or pores in the rock. The water travels down through the permeable rock until it
reaches a layer that does not have pores; this rock is impermeable (figure 1). This
impermeable rock layer forms the base of the aquifer. The upper surface where the
groundwater reaches is the water table.
Figure 1. Groundwater is found beneath the solid surface. Notice that the water table roughly mirrors the slope
of the land’s surface. A well penetrates the water table.

The Water Table

For a groundwater aquifer to contain the same amount of water, the amount of recharge
must equal the amount of discharge. What are the likely sources of recharge? What are
the likely sources of discharge?
Figure 2. The top of the stream is the top of the water table. The stream feeds the aquifer.

In wet regions, streams are fed by groundwater; the surface of the stream is the top of
the water table (figure 2). In dry regions, water seeps down from the stream into the
aquifer. These streams are often dry much of the year. Water leaves a groundwater
reservoir in streams or springs. People take water from aquifers, too.

What happens to the water table when there is a lot of rainfall? What happens when
there is a drought? Although groundwater levels do not rise and fall as rapidly as at the
surface, over time the water table will rise during wet periods and fall during droughts.

One of the most interesting, but extremely atypical types of aquifers is found in Florida.
Although aquifers are very rarely underground rivers, in Florida water has dissolved the
limestone so that streams travel underground and above ground (figure 3).

Figure 3. In Florida, groundwater is sometimes not underground.

Porosity and Permeability

Figure 4. A spring coming out of the shale near Red Creek. Yes, that water is black! (Photo: Matt Herod)

As we’ve learned, groundwater is simply water that exists underground. However, there
are still lots of misconceptions about how people envision groundwater. Many
envision large underground lakes and rivers, and while those do exist, they represent
an infinitesimally small percentage of all groundwater. Generally speaking groundwater
exists in the pore spaces between grains of soil and rocks. Imagine a water filled
sponge. All of the holes in that sponge are water-filled. By squeezing that sponge we
force the water out, similarly, by pumping an aquifer we force the water out of pore
spaces.

There are lots of terms in hydrogeology, most of which are very simple, but essential.
Here are a few of the big ones and their meanings.

Porosity

Porosity is an intrinsic property of every material. It refers to the amount of empty space
within a given material. In a soil or rock the porosity (empty space) exists between the
grains of minerals. In a material like gravel the grains are large and there is lots of
empty space between them since they don’t fit together very well. However, in a
material like a gravel, sand and clay mixture the porosity is much less as the smaller
grains fill the spaces. The amount of water a material can hold is directly related to the
porosity since water will try and fill the empty spaces in a material. We measure porosity
by the percentage of empty space that exists within a particular porous media.
Figure 5. Porosity in two different media. The image on the left is analagous to gravel whereas on the right
smaller particles are filling some of the pores and displacing water. Therefore, the water content of the material
on the right is less. (Source: Wikipedia)

Permeability

Figure 6. Video showing how connected pores have high permeability and can transport water easily. Note that
some pores are isolated and cannot transport water trapped within them.

Permeability is another intrinsic property of all materials and is closely related to

porosity. Permeability refers to how connected pore spaces are to one another. If the
material has high permeability than pore spaces are connected to one another allowing
water to flow from one to another, however, if there is low permeability then the pore
spaces are isolated and water is trapped within them. For example, in a gravel all of the
pores well connected one another allowing water to flow through it, however, in a clay
most of the pore spaces are blocked, meaning water cannot flow through it easily.
Aquifer

An aquifer is a term for a type of soil or rock that can hold and transfer water that is
completely saturated with water. That means that all it is simply a layer of soil or rock
that has a reasonably high porosity and permeability that allows it to contain water and
transfer it from pore to pore relatively quickly and all of the pore spaces are filled with
water. Good examples of aquifers are glacial till or sandy soils which have both high
porosity and high permeability. Aquifers allows us to recover groundwater by pumping
quickly and easily. However, overpumping can easily reduce the amount of water in an
aquifer and cause it to dry up. Aquifers are replenished when surface water infiltrates
through the ground and refills the pore spaces in the aquifer. This process is called
recharge. It is especially important to ensure that recharge is clean and uncontaminated
or the entire aquifer could become polluted. There are two main types of aquifer. An
unconfined aquifer is one that does not have an aquitard above it but usually does
below it.

When a water-bearing rock readily transmits water to wells and springs, it is called an
aquifer. Wells can be drilled into the aquifers and water can be pumped out.
Precipitation eventually adds water (recharge) into the porous rock of the aquifer. The
rate of recharge is not the same for all aquifers, though, and that must be considered
when pumping water from a well. Pumping too much water too fast draws down the
water in the aquifer and eventually causes a well to yield less and less water and even
run dry. In fact, pumping your well too fast can even cause your neighbor’s well to run
dry if you both are pumping from the same aquifer.

In the diagram below, you can see how the ground below the water table (the blue area)
is saturated with water. The “unsaturated zone” above the water table (the greenish
area) still contains water (after all, plants’ roots live in this area), but it is not totally
saturated with water. You can see this in the two drawings at the bottom of the diagram,
which show a close-up of how water is stored in between underground rock particles.