The investigation of sea water intrusion of the coastal aquifiers.
Alper Baba, Celalettin Simsek, Orhan Gunduz, Alper Elci, Alim Murathan, Hasan Sozbilir
Thursday 2 july 2015
17:45 - 17:48h
at Asia (level 0)
Themes: (T) Hydro-environment, (ST) Impacts of pollutants on the water environment, Poster pitches
Parallel session: Poster pitches: 13G. Environment - Impact
Groundwater is an important natural resource as today; more than 2 billion people depend on groundwater. Determination of the available water resources and utilizing them is a vital practice especially with the increasing water demand and future water scarcity. In the literature, there exist a few experiments focus on the determination of the groundwater characteristics at the coastal regions including geological, hydrogeological and marine studies. Coastal aquifers are considered as significance water sources. Generally, due to the land usage practices, coastal areas are settled more often. This results a boost of population density at these regions. Unfortunately, over-exploitation not only affects the neighboring wells and boreholes but also results several problems as land subsidence, drying of the surface waters and wetlands and sea water intrusion. The latter one, not only decline the fresh water potential of the aquifer for the public use but also, decrease the yields of agricultural crops vulnerable to salinity. This phenomena is especially common in Mediterranean regions because of the semi-arid conditions. Particularly the low recharge, results high demand of groundwater extractions. This study considers the Karaburun Peninsula is not only a significant spot for _zmir (Turkey) in manner of its natural resources and ecological heritage but also for also a historical spot for Eastern Mediterranean. Karaburun Peninsula has a complex hydrogeological structure based on karstic formations with majority of vast water storage and high transmission abilities. The region involve several coastal aquifers along the coastline either under the stress of sea water intrusions due to the over-pumping disturbs the seawater interface beneath the fresh water. In this study, hydraulic and hydrogeological properties of peninsula are evaluated and physical parameters are measured around the Region. The results showed that significant levels of karstification were observed in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic carbonates of the region which resulted in a number of poly and uvala structures. Karst structures are tectonically controlled in the region. Tectonic zones are EW and NNE trending. Costal aquifers in peninsula have been affected by sea intrusion due to excessive water withdrawal in the wells. Electrical conductivity values of water in these wells reached up to 8000 µS/cm during summer time.
