Hydro-g: Monitoring Groundwater Resources using Low-Cost Microgravity Sensors

地下水在向全球数百万人供水方面发挥着重要作用。在整个英国，地下水贡献了一些郡75%的水供应，并为溪流和湿地提供了至关重要的基流贡献，从而分别维持了水流系统和生态系统的健康。与此同时，随着水资源受到极端气候的威胁，水需求继续增加，家庭、工业和农业部门的需求相互竞争。因此，地下水资源的可持续管理对社区的复原力和经济发展至关重要。具有成本效益的地下水监测是一项关键挑战。由于缺乏陆地通道，安装和维护钻孔网络往往既昂贵又不切实际。最近，采用微电子机械系统(MEMS)的“片上重力仪”的突破性发明提供了一种令人兴奋的新传感器，可以以极低的成本克服这些限制。该项目将评估新的MEMS重力仪技术作为一种低成本非侵入性方法的可行性，用于监测地下水储存波动，并在相关尺度上确定英国基岩含水层的关键含水层参数，用于集水规模的水资源管理。该项目将促进对微重力方法在水文地质应用方面的一般性科学理解，并首次在水文地质研究领域建立新的低成本传感器技术。

Groundwater plays a major role in supplying water to millions of people globally. Across the UK, groundwater contributes >75% of water supplies in some counties and provides crucial baseflow contributions to streams and wetlands, thereby sustaining flow regimes and ecosystem health, respectively. At the same time as water resources are threatened by climate extremes, water demand continues to increase with competing demands from domestic, industrial, and agricultural sectors. Thus, sustainable management of groundwater resources is crucial for communities' resilience and economic development. Cost-effective groundwater monitoring is a key challenge. Installing and maintaining borehole networks is often costly and impractical due to lack of land access. The recent breakthrough invention of a 'gravimeter-on-a-chip' using a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) provides an exciting new sensor to overcome these limitations at a fraction of the cost. The project will evaluate the feasibility of new MEMS gravimeter technology as a low-cost non-intrusive method for monitoring groundwater storage fluctuations and for determining key aquifer parameters in UK bedrock aquifers on a relevant scale for catchment-scale water resource management. The project will advance the generic scientific understanding regarding the hydrogeological application of microgravity methods and establish the new low-cost sensor technology in the field of hydrogeological studies for the first time.