Offshore freshened groundwater in the Pearl River estuary and shelf as a significant water resource

Large-river deltaic estuaries and adjacent continental shelves have experienced multiple phases of transgressions and regressions to form interlayered aquifer-aquitard systems and are expected to host vast paleo-terrestrial groundwater hundreds of kilometres offshore. Here, we used offshore hydrogeo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2023-06, Vol.14 (1), p.3781-3781, Article 3781
Main Authors: Sheng, Chong, Jiao, Jiu Jimmy, Luo, Xin, Zuo, Jinchao, Jia, Lei, Cao, Jinghe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/242
704/242
704/844/685
Aquifers
China
Coastal zone
Continental shelves
Desalination
Drinking water
Environmental Monitoring
Estuaries
Fresh Water
Geochemistry
Geology
Groundwater
Groundwater reservoirs
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrogeology
multidisciplinary
Pore water
Povidone
Raw water
Rivers
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Water Pollutants, Chemical
Water quality
Water Resources
Water shortages
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Summary:Large-river deltaic estuaries and adjacent continental shelves have experienced multiple phases of transgressions and regressions to form interlayered aquifer-aquitard systems and are expected to host vast paleo-terrestrial groundwater hundreds of kilometres offshore. Here, we used offshore hydrogeology, marine geophysical reflections, porewater geochemistry, and paleo-hydrogeological models, and identified a previously unknown offshore freshened groundwater body with a static volume up to 575.6 ± 44.9 km 3 in the Pearl River Estuary and adjacent continental shelf, with the freshwater extending as far as 55 km offshore. An integrated analysis of stable isotopic compositions and water quality indices reveals the meteoric origins of such freshened groundwater and its significance as potential potable water or raw water source for desalination. Hotspots of offshore freshened groundwater in large-river deltaic estuaries and adjacent continental shelves, likely a global phenomenon, have a great potential for exploitable water resources in highly urbanized coastal areas suffering from freshwater shortage. A large and relatively fresh groundwater reservoir is identified in Pearl River estuary and adjacent shelf. This offshore low-salinity groundwater, likely a global phenomenon, has great potential to alleviate the pressure of future water shortages.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-39507-0