Simulated effect of vadose infiltration on water levels in the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, 2000, Contractor Dn, Jenson Jw,

Regional-scale hydrology of the fresh water lens in the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer has been simulated in the past using a finite element, sharp interface computer model, SWIG2D. Systematic differences exist between observed and computed water levels. Computed seasonal peak water levels are higher, and the computed seasonal lows are lower than the respective observed levels. It is hypothesized that vadose storage must store a substantial amount of water during the wet season and release it gradually into the lens during the dry season. Flow through the vadose zone was simulated with a one-dimensional finite element, unsaturated flow program UNSATID, in which the van Genuchten model is used to characterize unsaturated diffuse flow through the matrix of the vadose zone. An additional parameter (SINK) was added to the van Genuchten set to account for rapid infiltration down open pathways (fractures) associated with the closed depressions of the karst terrain. A global-optimization technique (Shuffled Complex Evolution or SCE-UA Method) was used to obtain the parameters that minimized the difference between simulated and observed water levels. Simulations incorporating the van Genuchten model were accomplished by combining the two programs, UNSATID and SWIG2D, into a single program. The sum-of-squared-errors (SSE) between computed and observed water levels in four observation wells was minimized using SCE-UA, reducing the arithmetically averaged SSE of the four wells by 30% compared with the SSE obtained when the vadose zone was not modeled. These results suggest that vadose storage is significant. On the other hand, the fact that the best fit obtained with an optimum parameter set was able to reduce the SSE by no more than 30% suggests that additional phenomena have yet to be accounted for to mon fully explain differences between simulated and observed well water levels. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Recharge and aquifer response: Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, Guam, Mariana Islands, 2002, Jocson J. M. U. , Jenson J. W. , Contractor D. N. ,

The Northern Guam Lens Aquifer is an island karst aquifer in uplifted young, highly conductive limestone. Calculations of recharge based on differences between daily rainfall and daily pan evaporation suggest that the maximum annual mass of water delivered to the freshwater lens is about 67% of mean annual rainfall. Hydrographs of daily well-level responses plotted against daily rainfall indicate that the rate at which water is delivered to the lens is a function of rainfall intensity and the relative saturation of the vadose zone. Together, these variables determine the degree to which stormwater is shunted into fast flow through preferred pathways that bypass the bedrock matrix, rather than percolating slowly through the bedrock matrix. Data from the 40-year interval from 1956 to 1995 show that some 17% of rainfall on northern Guam arrives in small amounts (<0.6 cm/day). Most of this light rainfall is probably lost to evapotranspiration. At least another 20% of total rainfall on Guam arrives at very high intensities (>5.0 cm/day), which tend to promote fast flow at the expense of percolation. Rapid recovery of the water table from rapid recharge suggests that the lens either takes such recharge into storage very rapidly, discharges it rapidly without taking it into storage, or some combination of both. Significant vadose buffering of recharge to the lens is indicated by the fact that simulations assuming that the recharge from precipitation received in any given month is transmitted to the lens during the same month consistently over-predict observed peak mean monthly water levels and under-predict the minima. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Zones of enhanced dissolution and associated cave morphology in an uplifted carbonate island karst aquifer, northern Guam, Mariana Island, 2003, Taboroši D. , Jenson J. W, Mylroie J. E.

n contrast to Paleozoic limestones where drainage is based on classical cave systems (secondary porosity), young limestones of uplifted carbonate islands retain substantial distributed primary porosity. Consequently, speleogenesis on such islands is restricted to environments where dissolution is sufficiently focused to produce caves. Thus, on Guam and similar islands, solution voids large enough for human traverse occur only in settings where dissolution has been focused by hydrologic or geologic boundaries. In the vadose zone, these boundaries are lithologic contacts or structural discontinuities that channel the flow of aggressive water. In the phreatic zone, the boundaries are hydrologic contacts, where aggressive water is produced through the mixing of saturated waters. These geologic and hydrologic settings are sites of significant speleogenesis, each characterized by morphologically and hydrologically distinct types of caves.

A frequency domain approach to groundwater recharge estimation in karst, 2004, Jukic D. , Icjukic V. ,

This paper presents an alternative method for determining the values of parameters of a groundwater recharge model. The phreatic zone of a karst aquifer is considered as the linear and time-invariant filter that transforms the input signal of groundwater recharge rates into the output signal of spring discharges. Similarities between transfer functions of total rainfall rates and transfer functions of groundwater recharge rates are the basis for developing the parametric periodogram depending on parameters of a groundwater recharge model. The values of parameters are estimated by minimizing the differences between the parametric periodogram and a periodogram of spring discharges. The approximate Whittle log likelihood function is the criterion for determining the optimal values of the parameters. By using this frequency domain approach, groundwater-balance calculations are avoided so the method can be applied on unexplored karst aquifers when groundwater-balance cannot be achieved without extensive geologic and hydrogeologic investigations. The results of the applications on two springs located in the Dinaric karst area in Croatia are discussed. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved