3-D GEOSCIENCE MODELS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO HYDROGEOLOGICAL DOMAINS MAPPING

The sustainable management of groundwater resources is increasingly important as part of the development and implementation of European Union (EU) legislation and directives. 3-D geoscience models are becoming used not only as visualisation tools but also as a basis for assessments of aquifer recharge and vulnerability in order to allow regulators to satisfy legislative requirements.

The British Geological Survey has developed attributed, 3-D geoscience models of the shallow-subsurface in order to derive hydrogeological domains for the assessment of aquifer recharge and vulnerability. 3-D geoscience models of complex areas of natural and artificial superficial deposits have been built for UK environmental regulators, the Environment Agency, in areas underlain by Permo-Triassic rocks of the Sherwood Sandstone Group. The Sherwood Sandstone Group constitutes one of the major aquifers in the UK.

In the Manchester – Salford area in north-west England, detailed GIS analysis of the attributed 3-D geological model was used to derive hydrogeological domains to assess the vulnerability of the underlying aquifer to pollution in one of the major population centres of the UK. In the Doncaster – Retford area of north-eastern England, hydrogeological domains were produced to assess the extent to which recharge was likely to occur into the underlying aquifer and its potential effect on near-by ecological receptors.

Just as important as the models themselves is the way in which the 3-D information is presented. The British Geological Survey has implemented the use of the SUBSURFACE VIEWER (© INSIGHT GmbH) enabling specialist and non-specialist users to fully analyse attributed 3-D ground information. Visualisation of 3-D ground information in this way enables effective and sustainable decisions about land use and groundwater management to be made.