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How groundwater management activities can affect water quantity and quality1 min read

by Christina Procopiou on October 2, 2019

Energy Geosciences Division Environmental Remediation & Water Resources Program GC-Future Water

Peter Nico has co-authored a new working paper outlining how groundwater management activities can affect not only the quantity but also the quality of groundwater with a team of water-quality experts led by the Environmental Defense Fund. Nico is an environmental biogeochemist and program domain lead for Berkeley Lab’s Resilient Energy, Water and Infrastructure Program. 

The paper is intended to help groundwater managers avoid inadvertently contaminating water supplies as they change management practices to comply with California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). It focuses on natural contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, and uranium, as well as contaminants that can pose a threat to human and ecosystem health, such as polyfluroalkyl substances.

Signed into law five years ago, SGMA requires local leaders to balance groundwater demand and supplies for the first time. 

“Berkeley Lab established its deep expertise in the geochemistry of contamination on Department of Energy sites, but all of this knowledge can apply to groundwater contamination too,” said Nico. “My co-authors and I believe that if groundwater managers plan new projects in a holistic way that considers water quality in addition to water supply, they will be able to avoid contamination and in some cases even improve quality and increase quantity at the same time.”

News & Events

EGD Postdoc Fellow Receives Young Researcher Presenter Award1 min read

January 21, 2021

Pramod Bhuvankar, an EGD postdoctoral fellow working with research scientist Abdullah Cihan, received a Young Researcher Presenter Award during the 2020 Computational Methods in Water Resources conference in December. His presentation, “Pore-scale simulations of permeability decline in porous media due to fines migration,” described a pore-scale CFD study of clay mobilization in porous media due…

Berkeley Lab Partners with International Collaborators in Geothermal Energy Research1 min read

January 20, 2021

  Scientists from the Energy Geosciences Division have begun working with European partners on three new geothermal research projects through the Department of Energy’s membership in GEOTHERMICA, a transnational consortium that combines the in-country financial resources and research expertise of 15 participating countries to demonstrate and validate novel concepts in geothermal energy use. This marks the…

EESA Senior Scientist Talks Earthquake Building Resilience1 min read

Berkeley Lab senior scientist David McCallen leads a subproject called Earthquake Sim, or EQSIM, for the DOE’s Energy Exascale Computing Project. He is also professor and director of the Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. McCallen recently spoke with Scott Gibson of…

EESA Scientist Coauthors New Comprehensive Guide on Removing CO2 from the Atmosphere2 min read

January 18, 2021

Berkeley Lab researchers are working on ways to sequester more carbon in soil, including through agricultural practices. (Credit: Berkeley Lab) Scientists say that any serious plan to address climate change should include carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies and policies, which makes the newly launched CDR Primer an especially vital resource, says Berkeley Lab scientist Margaret Torn, one…

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