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One of the most important issues for water resource management is developing strategies for groundwater modelling that are adaptable to data scarcity. These strategies are particularly important in arid and semi-arid areas where access to data is poor and data collection is difficult, such as the Lake Chad Basin in Africa. In the present study, we establish a numerical groundwater flow model and evaluate the effects of dry and wet periods on groundwater recharge in the Chari–Logone area (96 000 km2) of the Lake Chad Basin. Boundary conditions, flow direction, sources, and sinks for the Chari–Logone local model were obtained by revising and remodelling the Lake Chad Basin regional hydrogeological model (508 400 km2) developed by the BRGM (Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres) in the 1990s. The simulated aquifer water level showed good agreement with observed levels. Aquifer recharge is primarily determined by river–aquifer interactions and mostly occurs in the southern section of the study area. In wet years, groundwater recharge also occurs in the N'Djamena area. The approach we adopted provided relevant results and was useful as an initial step in more detailed modelling of the area. It also proved to be a useful method for groundwater modelling in large semi-arid and arid regions where available data are scarce. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Current climate change models for the southeast UK predict changing rainfall patterns, with increased incidence of extreme events. The chalk aquifer in the UK and northern France is susceptible to groundwater-induced methodological study we apply a frequency domain analysis approach to the chalk aquifer to derive a transfer function between effective rainfall and groundwater level from 7 years of monitoring data from the North Heath Barn site, near Brighton. The derived transfer function was calibrated and validated against monitoring data and then used to predict groundwater level for rainfall models for high, medium and low emission scenarios from the UKCP09 database. The derived transfer function is most closely comparable to the linear aquifer model, despite evidence for both matrix and fracture or karst water uncon rainfall data suggests that groundwater-induced 1961 minima relative to the reference period. Compared to deterministic modelling which requires detailed knowledge of aquifer heterogeneity and processes, the transfer function approach, although with limitations, is simpler, incorporating these factors into the analysis through frequency and phase coef areas.flooding under such conditions. In thisflow in the chalk, with transmissivity andfined storativity at the catchment scale of 1548m2 day1 and 1.6 × 102. The application of the transfer function to UKCP09flooding may be about four times more frequent by 2040–2069 compared with–1990 and seven times more frequent by 2070–2099. The model data also suggest an increase in the duration of groundwaterficients, and thus may have the potential for groundwater risk assessment in other

Environmental tracers, such as tritium, have generally been used to estimate aquifer recharge under natural conditions. A tritium tracer test is presented for estimating recharge under semi-arid and irrigated conditions. The test was performed along 429 days (June 2007–August 2008) on an experimental plot located in SE Spain with drip irrigation and annual row crops (rotation of lettuce and melon), in which common agricultural practices were followed in open air. Tritiated water was sprinkled (simulated rainfall) over the plot, soil cores were taken at different depths and a liquid scintillation analyzer was used to measure tritium concentration in soil water samples. Tritium transport, as liquid or vapor phase, was simulated with the one-dimensional numerical code SOLVEG. Simulations show that the crop water use was below potential levels, despite regular irrigation. Continuous high water content in soil promoted a great impact of rainfall events on the aquifer recharge. The results obtained from tritium tracer test have been compared with other independent recharge assessment, soil water balance method, to evaluate the reliability of the first one. Total recharge from tracer test was 476 mm for the October 2007–September 2008 period versus 561 mm from soil water balance method for the same period, which represents 37.1% and 43.7% of the applied water (1284 mm, irrigation + precipitation), respectively. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.