Timescale and Effectiveness of Residual Saltwater Desalinization Behind Subsurface Dams in an Unconfined Aquifer
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AbstractCountermeasures against saltwater intrusion (SWI) are critical to prevent coastal groundwater deterioration. Among different measures to prevent SWI, subsurface dams have shown to be an effective approach, but it is likely to produce residual saltwater behind the dam in a landward aquifer. This study investigated the influences of subsurface dam design and aquifer properties on the dynamic characteristics of residual saltwater in a fieldscale aquifer and for the first time revealed the desalinization mechanism of residual saltwater behind the dams from the point of mixing zone. It was found that the lowconcentration mixing zone (LCMZ) (for the area between 10% and 50% of seawater salinity) was a major channel for the saltwater to flow over the dam to the ocean boundary while the residual salt was continuously dispersed to the LCMZ from the highconcentration mixing zone (HCMZ) (for the area between 50% and 90% of seawater salinity) under highconcentration gradients. Moreover, we developed two formulas of the reduction rate of saltwater wedge length (RSWL*) and the removal rate of total residual salt mass (RTSM*) to evaluate the desalination effectiveness of high and lowconcentration residual saltwater, respectively. The results showed that it took much longer time for a taller dam and a dam at a closer position to the sea boundary to desalinize the highconcentration residual saltwater in the upstream aquifer, more than 50years for the cases of dam height beyond 16m. On the contrary, only a slightly shorter time was needed to remove the lowconcentration saltwater behind the dams with the decrease of the distance from the sea boundary. Aquifer properties including the hydraulic gradient, hydraulic conductivity, and dispersivity strongly altered the desalinization time of the residual saltwater. The dispersivity was found to be the most critical factor influencing the removal effectiveness of saltwater retained in the landward aquifer. Increase of dispersivity from 1 to 3m can dramatically reduce the desalinization time from more than 30 to 4years.
