The legacy and drivers of groundwater nutrients and pesticides in an agriculturally impacted Quaternary aquifer system (original) (raw)

Nutrient and pesticide pollution are among the major threats to groundwater quality in agriculturally impacted aquifers. Understanding their legacy effects and drivers are important to protect aquifers from exposures to contamination. However, the complexities of groundwater flowpaths make it difficult to predict the time-scales of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. To determine these controls of groundwater nutrient and pesticides in an aquifer system underlying an intensive agricultural area in the Great Barrier Reef catchment, Australia, we sampled tritium ( 3 H) to estimate groundwater-age, nutrient and pesticide concentrations to investigate groundwater contamination, and nitrogen (ẟ 15 N-NO 3 -) and oxygen (ẟ 18 O-NO 3 -) isotopes to determine groundwater nitrate dynamics. We, then, constructed high-resolution 3D geological and groundwater flow models of the aquifer system to determine the role of the geologic heterogeneity on the observed nutrient and pesticide concentrations. Groundwater 3 H derived ages, and nutrient and pesticide J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof 2 concentrations did not follow distinct spatial trends. ẟ 15 N-NO 3 and ẟ 18 O-NO 3 values indicated that nitrification and denitrification processes influenced nitrate dynamics in the aquifer system; however, they were not solely able to explain the entire 3D variability. The 3D geologic modelling identified possible preferential flowpaths and perched systems, which helped to explain the observed groundwater-age, nutrient and pesticide variabilities. Oldgroundwater (~100-years) was found in shallow depths (<15 m) where perched systems were identified. In areas with preferential flowpaths, young-groundwater (⁓1-year) with significant nitrate (~12 mg-N/L) and pesticides (up to 315 ng/L) concentrations were detected at deeper depths (>25 m), below perched and locally confined systems. Downward increasing groundwater-age, and decreasing nutrient and pesticide concentrations were detected in the unconfined aquifer, while old-groundwater (~160-years) and lower nitrate (<3 mg-N/L) and pesticides (<2 ng/L) concentrations were detected in the confined systems. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding both the geology and the hydrogeology of an area before deploying monitoring studies and/or making conclusions from tritium, nutrient and pesticide data alone. Keywords 3D geologic modelling; Great Barrier Reef; groundwater age; MODFLOW; Lower Burdekin aquifer contamination; stable isotopes J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof atmospherically derived tritium is used to determine the time since water entered groundwater systems (Beyer et al., 2014). Tritium occurs naturally in precipitation, and once isolated from the atmosphere, 3 H is only depleted due to radioactive decay. With a half-life of 12.32 years, 3 H is ideal for determining MRT of groundwater of up to 150 years, with a precision of few years (Hofmann et al., 2019; Li et al., 2019). However, the distribution of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof -(+0.8‰ to 5.8‰) differ significantly (Durka et al., 1994). Therefore, a dual-isotope approach using ẟ 15 N and ẟ 18 O provides a more conclusive assessment tracing the transformations of NO 3 in groundwater (Seiler, 2005).