Characterizing, Quantifying, and Optimizing Groundwater Recharge in
Dedicated MAR Basins at the Moorpark Water Reclamation Facility, Ventura
County, CA
Abstract
As a result of climate change, California is experiencing the impact of
more extreme weather patterns including longer drought periods and
atmospheric rivers resulting in extreme snow pack and heavy flood flows.
CA faces a significant challenge to mitigate these impacts while
simultaneously providing resilient sources of water under uncertain
future conditions. One approach that addresses both flood mitigation and
water storage is the use of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR). Ventura
County Waterworks District #1 (VCWWD) is designing a MAR recharge
facility to divert flood flows in the adjacent Arroyo Las Posas to a
series of engineered basins, where water will infiltrate and replenish
the local aquifer (estimated recharge: 3000 acre-feet annually).
However, large uncertainties in percolation rates and an inability to
predict or improve percolation (measured: 5 and 16 cm/day) places large
uncertainties on the facility’s ultimate performance (and impact) on
VCWWD’s overall strategy for sustainable groundwater management. The
goals of this project are to use a suite of geophysical techniques,
point sensors and novel modeling approaches to measure the basin(s)
spatial recharge rates, where and how the water is infiltrating (fast
paths) and how will basin modification improve recharge rates. Selected
basins will first be characterized using electromagnetic methods and
electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) coupled with soil cores to
estimate the distribution of subsurface permeability in order to design
the infiltration monitoring layout. During managed flooding events
Spontaneous Potential will be used to monitor subsurface leakage from
the basins back into the river. Within a basin, novel vertical
Distributed Temperature Profiling sensors will measure diurnal
temperature fluxes to calculate spatially distributed 1-D vertical
recharge rates and 3D time-lapse ERT to monitor and measure the
spatially dynamic recharge. ERT results will be coupled with multi-point
geostatistical simulations to estimate soil permeability field scenarios
and with novel joint inversion codes to estimate volumetric recharge and
rates, offering a powerful suite of tools for water managers to
quantify, and potentially improve basin recharge rates and develop
operational and maintenance plans to maximize recharge.