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Coastal aquifer assessment based on geological and geophysical survey, northwestern Crete, Greece

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Abstract

Groundwater preservation comprises a major problem in water policy. The comprehension of the groundwater/hydraulic systems can provide the means to approach this problem. Generally, drilling is expensive and time-consuming. On the other hand, new techniques have been applied during the last few decades that provide useful information on the depth and quality of aquifers. Among them, transient electromagnetic method (TEM) is an appealing method that provides fast results with minimum field crew and solves several hydrogeological problems. Many portable systems for single-site measurements are commercially available. The TEM-Fast 48HPC was used for acquiring 106 soundings in the northwestern Crete in Greece for defining the hydrogeological characteristics of the study area, since there were no available data from boreholes. Detailed geological, hydrolithological and tectonic survey was applied prior to the geophysical measurements. All the data were integrated to produce a secure and reliable hydrogeological model for the study area prior to any future hydrowell. Specifically, geometrical and hydraulic data of the study area groundwater were acquired. Two unconnected aquifers were detected and their possible contamination due to saltwater intrusion was analyzed and eliminated. Moreover, a location for borehole construction and groundwater pumping based on the potential of the aquifer system was proposed. Finally, the contribution of TEM (and electrical resistivity tomography) geophysical methods in studying complex coastal aquifers is shown by this work.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Elias Papadopoulos, Panayiotis Kanellopoulos, Panayiota Sarridou and Georgia Pegga, collaborators at TEI of Crete, for the great help during the TEM data acquisition. PS wishes to thank the Municipality of Souda and Ankara University in Turkey for partly supporting this work and Dr. K. Vozinakis (principal geologist of the Water Management Authority in Chania Prefecture) for the data provision and other useful information which help the completion of this work. This work is partially supported also by the project INTERREG IIIb, ARCHIMED, sub-project A1.020, MILDMAP: “Methodology integration of EO techniques as operative tool for land degradation management and planning in Mediterranean areas”. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Geophysics and Seismology, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, 3 Romanou, Chalepa, 73133, Chania, Crete, Greece

    Pantelis M. Soupios, Maria Kouli & Filippos Vallianatos

  2. Institute for the Environment, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

    Despina Kalisperi

  3. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Asimina Kanta

  4. Geoelectromagnetic Research Centre IPE RAS, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Pavel Barsukov

  5. Department of Geophysical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey

    Pantelis M. Soupios

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  1. Pantelis M. Soupios
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  2. Despina Kalisperi
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  3. Asimina Kanta
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  4. Maria Kouli
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  5. Pavel Barsukov
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  6. Filippos Vallianatos
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Correspondence to Pantelis M. Soupios.

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Soupios, P.M., Kalisperi, D., Kanta, A. et al. Coastal aquifer assessment based on geological and geophysical survey, northwestern Crete, Greece. Environ Earth Sci 61, 63–77 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-009-0320-1

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