Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures for alluvial aquifers - Solution approaches based on the thermal exploitation of managed aquifer (MAR) and surface water recharge (MSWR)

As climate change adaptation strategies, both Managed Aquifer (MAR) and Surface Water Recharge (MSWR) are not only highly suitable tools to mitigate negative effects on water resources but also bear large potential for concomitant exploitation of thermal energy. They should thus form an integral part of any sustainable water resources management strategy. However, while at global scale general water resource adaptation and mitigation measures are discussed widely, measures that build on thermal exploitation of MAR and MSWR, and which are readily adaptable to various different local and regional scale conditions, have yet to be developed. Here, based on systematic numerical analyses of the sensitivity of groundwater and surface water recharge as well as water temperatures to climate change, we present adaptable implementation strategies of MAR and MSWR with concomitant exploitation of their thermal energy potential. Strategies and feasibility benchmarks for the exploitation of hydrologic and energetic potentials of MAR and MSWR were developed based on three hydrologically and hydrogeologically contrasting urban study sites near the city of Basel, Switzerland. Our studies show projected trends in the number of days when surface water temperatures exceed 25 °C examined for various streamflow and climate scenarios. We illustrate that local hydrogeologic settings and hydrological boundary conditions as well as legal aspects affect to which degree MAR and MSWR are suitable solutions as climate change adaptation measures. Optimal situations for exploiting the potential of seasonal heat storage in MAR and MSWR exist where subsurface travel times between the injection and the withdrawal or exfiltration point are between 4 and 8 months and legal limits allow a sufficiently large temperature spread. In such settings, the exploitable water flux and temperature spread of MAR and MSWR reaches a heat potential of 14 to 20 MW (i.e., corresponding to 3 to 7 wind power plants), and energetic exploitation becomes a suitable tool either for local low-temperature heat applications such as heating and hot water or for ecological use as a heat and water buffer in rivers affected by seasonal droughts. As a positive side effect, climate-induced warming of groundwater resources and temperature increases in drinking water withdrawals would be mitigated simultaneously.