GNGTS 2024 - Atti del 42° Convegno Nazionale

Session 3.2 GNGTS 2024 Geophysical-based approach for studying the submarine groundwater discharge: the SUBGEO Project G. Romano 1 , L. Capozzoli 2 , V. Lapenna 2 , M. Polemio 3 1 Department of Earth and Geo-Environmental Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Piazza Umberto I, 70121 Bari, Italy 2 Insttute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, Natonal Research Council of Italy (IMAA CNR), C. da S. Loja—Zona Industriale, Tito Scalo, 85050 Potenza, Italy 3 Research Insttute for Hydrogeological Protecton, Natonal Research Council of Italy (IRPI CNR) 70126 Bari, Italy The problem of water supply represents a priority for not only the Mediterranean Area but for the World if we consider the age-old problem of the drought exacerbated by the climate change events that are constantly seen [Jiao and Post, 2019]. Coastal aquifers are fundamental for water supply and innovatve strategies are strongly required to detect and preserve water resources under increasing pressure. Developing new knowledge and innovatve solutons for a systemic and inclusive approach of water management represents a big challenge for the scientfc community. Indeed, delineatng coastal hydrogeologic structures, or hydrostratgraphy, is a crucial step for the characterizaton of groundwater fow and management of groundwater resources. Furthermore, hydrostratgraphic complexites play a fundamental role in the interactons occurring between coastal aquifers and marine ecosystems and infuence the transport of solutes to coastal waters, and the response to climate change [Befus et al., 2014]. However, as coastal groundwater investgatons are addressed to characterize and monitor the onshore resources and coastal fringe processes, the interactons between fresh groundwater within submarine aquifers remain poorly explored [Post et al., 2013; Knight et al., 2019]. The increasing water demand on the global scale because of per capita demand and populaton increases causes a strongly increasing exploitaton of the available high-quality water resources, increasing the risk of salinizaton via mixing for seawater intrusion. These trends can be further worsened in large areas by the enduring efects of climate change. All these conditons are causing stress on the water resources of coastal aquifers. The management eforts require more knowledge of coastal springs and submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), to preserve residual fresh resources and to fnd the freshest possible groundwater for desalinaton [Polemio et al., 2020]. However, coastal areas, are challenging places for the applicaton of geophysical methods due to their being highly dynamic and fragile systems and because they are consttuted by two diferent operatonal conditons: land onshore and sea ofshore. At present tme, the relatvely few surveys aimed to characterize the coastal areas are usually performed by joint together land and marine surveys. This practce, whereas of simple applicatons, has a relevant limit. The boundary area between the sea and the land, the area close