An approach is presented to determine groundwater flow in unconsolidated aquifers with a heat pulse response test using a heating cable and a fiber-optic cable. The cables are installed together using direct push so that the cables are in direct contact with the aquifer. The temperature response is measured for multiple days along the fiber-optic cable with Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS). The new approach fits a two-dimensional analytical solution to the temperature measurements, so that the specific discharge can be estimated without knowledge of the position of the fiber-optic cable relative to the heating cable. Two case studies are presented. The first case study is at a managed aquifer recharge system where fiber-optic cables are inserted 15 m deep at various locations to test the fitting procedure. Similar and relatively large specific discharges are found at the different locations with little vertical variation (0.4–0.6 m/day). The second case study is at a polder, where the water level is maintained 2 m below the surrounding lakes, resulting in significant groundwater flow. The heating and fiber-optic cables are inserted to a depth of 45 m. The specific discharge varies 0.07–0.1 m/day and is significantly larger in a thin layer at 30-m depth. It is shown with numerical experiments that the estimated specific discharge is smoother than in reality due to vertical conduction, but the peak specific discharge is estimated correctly for layers thicker than ∼1.5 m.

An approach is presented to determine the seasonal variations in travel time in a bank filtration system using a passive heat tracer test. The temperature in the aquifer varies seasonally because of temperature variations of the infiltrating surface water and at the soil surface. Temperature was measured with distributed temperature sensing along fiber optic cables that were inserted vertically into the aquifer with direct push equipment. The approach was applied to a bank filtration system consisting of a sequence of alternating, elongated recharge basins and rows of recovery wells. A SEAWAT model was developed to simulate coupled flow and heat transport. The model of a two-dimensional vertical cross section is able to simulate the temperature of the water at the well and the measured vertical temperature profiles reasonably well. MODPATH was used to compute flowpaths and the travel time distribution. At the study site, temporal variation of the pumping discharge was the dominant factor influencing the travel time distribution. For an equivalent system with a constant pumping rate, variations in the travel time distribution are caused by variations in the temperature-dependent viscosity. As a result, travel times increase in the winter, when a larger fraction of the water travels through the warmer, lower part of the aquifer, and decrease in the summer, when the upper part of the aquifer is warmer.

Submarine groundwater discharge is an important part of the hydrological cycle, but remains under-investigated for confined aquifers with no surface outcrop at the beach. This paper considers the offshore directed flow of fresh groundwater in the unconfined and confined aquifers along the coast of the Western Netherlands. Salinity patterns based on hydrological, geological, and geophysical field data are presented in five shore-normal hydrogeological cross-sections, extending from the beach to 4. km inland. The offshore continuation of the fresh groundwater is discussed using analytical models and cone penetration tests (CPTs) performed at the beach. All CPTs taken around the low water line of the intertidal zone reveal that changes from saline to fresh groundwater are always associated with a low-permeable layer. Such a low-permeable layer, which can be as thin as a few decimetres, may form the confining layer between the unconfined and confined aquifers, or can occur within of the unconfined aquifer. Due to its high vertical resolution, a CPT is an effective method to detect these variations in salinity and lithology. At each of the investigated locations, freshwater was present in the confined aquifer. Assuming that this fresh groundwater is part of an active flow system, the submarine freshwater tongue is estimated to extend at least a few hundred meters offshore, based on analytical model calculations. Hydrochemical data from an old offshore borehole, however, suggest this may be an underestimate and that the submarine freshwater tongue originates from former times when the coastline was located further westward than nowadays.