Effects of the Deep Pool on Groundwater Flow and Salinization in Coastal Reservoir and Adjacent Aquifer

Coastal reservoirs can alleviate freshwater shortages occurring in the nearshore zone. Deep pools patched at the bottom of reservoirs at greater depths than their adjacent beds maintain a high salinity and possibly provide preferential paths for saltwater backfill. However, such processes are not well understood. Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of the deep pool on subsurface flow and the salinization of coastal reservoir and adjacent aquifers. When seawater intruded into the initially fresh aquifer, the deep pool accelerated the uptake of saltwater to the reservoir from the salt wedge, forming a temporary salt plume around the pool. The saltwater plume also accelerated salt ingress and the evolution of the total salt mass in the coastal reservoir, resulting in the earlier attainment of a quasi-steady state (a classical saltwater wedge) than that when the deep pool was absent. Under steady-state conditions, the deep pool greatly enhanced the exchange of water across the reservoir-aquifer interface by 107% and raised the salinization level of the coastal reservoir by at least 10.3%. Sensitivity analysis suggested that a deeper pool and/or a pool located closer to the reservoir dam may enhance the water exchange and salinity level in the reservoir because it accelerates the water/salt inflow to the freshwater body to a greater extent. These findings may further contribute to improving the predictability and management of water quality in these coastal facilities.