Seawater intrusion models

The technical report Seawater intrusion models corresponds to deliverable D7 (due to December 31, 2004) and it is linked to the workpackage WP3 Development and implementation of Models/groundwater flow, seawater intrusion, optimisation aspects of the project Sustainable Water Management In Mediterranean Coastal Aquifers: Recharge Assessment and Modelling Issues (SWIMED). The project belongs to the framework of the INCO II (1998-2002) initiative of the European Commission. This initiative was meant in order to promote collaborative research of Mediterranean partner countries in the context of transboundary economic, environmental and socio--political problems. Coastal aquifers are the main source of freshwater in many arid regions, including most Mediterranean coasts. Therefore, they are often exploited beyond their capabilities. This makes them highly vulnerable to pollution caused by seawater intrusion. Although this kind of pollution is sometimes underestimated it must be kept in mind that only a 5\% mixture with seawater causes most freshwaters to become contaminated and thus unusable for human consumption but also for agricultural use. The European Water Framework Directive puts renewed pressure on water managers to address the issue, which in the past has been recognised as important but with little to do about it. Water managers nowadays have to: define and characterise water bodies, compute their water balances, define good status, design and implement corrective measures, propose and manage exploitation plans and design monitoring networks. While these tasks have to be carried our in all aquifers, they appear as especially difficult in coastal aquifers, potentially prone to seawater intrusion. In the context of sustainable development of water resources in Mediterranean areas where costal aquifers are exploited, advanced integrated computational tools (subsurface hydrology numerical models and GIS) can help water managers both to define quantitatively the status of the subsurface water bodies and to simulate future scenarios accounting for proposed mitigation plans (e.g. pumping modification, artificial recharge). The workpackage WP3 is the kernel of SWIMED project since it allows using and cementing data from the previous WP2 (Input data) through good working numerical models and related optimization aspects for producing useful simulations and outputs. The report is focused on the description of different seawater intrusion codes, either used or developed by the SWIMED partnership, with the final aim to point out their mutual differences in order to define their optimal field of application. The codes selected by partners are: BIGFLOW (France), CODESA-3D (Italy), FEFLOW (Switzerland), GEO_SWIM (LIMEN--Morocco) and SEAWAT (Morocco and Palestine) . The basic format of the following paragraphs contains an overview of each code, the type of seawater intrusion applications that the model is intended to deal with and the required input and computer requirements.

@TechReport{LL04a,
  author       = {Lecca, G. and Larabi, A.},
  title        = {Seawater intrusion models},
  institution  = {CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia},
  number       = {05/45},
  month        = {january},
  year         = {2004},
  address      = {Cagliari, Italy},
  note         = {idxproject: SWIMED},
  type         = {techreport},
  keywords     = {flow and transport in porous media, computer models, groundwater resources management},
  url          = {https://publications.crs4.it/pubdocs/2004/LL04a},
}