Jun Zhang

Hierarchically nested groundwater flow systems have been widely investigated by numerical modeling and laboratory experiments but seldom recognized from in situ observations and testing. Groundwater age and geochemical profiles were obtained by the authors using a packer system along two wellbores drilled in the Ordos Plateau, China. Groundwater age profiles were constructed from ³ H, ⁸⁵ Kr, ¹⁴ C, and ⁸¹ Kr data, with the apparent age generally increasing with depth, while exhibiting several inflection points. These inflection points were compared with geochemical profiles and numerical modeling results to delineate groundwater flow systems. Inflection points with significant increases in the gradients of age and Cl ⁻ concentration versus depth may indicate interfaces among flow systems. A concurrent decrease‐increase turning of groundwater age and Cl ⁻ concentration is influenced by a stagnation point. The groundwater age profiles are quite different from previous studies, indicating that the method can greatly reduce the uncertainty in model construction.

Groundwater age is often used to estimate groundwater recharge through a simplified analytical approach. This estimated recharge is thought to be representative of the mean recharge between the point of entry and the sampling point. However, given the complexity in actual recharge, whether the mean recharge is reasonable is still unclear. This study examined the validity of the method to estimate long‐term average groundwater recharge and the possibility of obtaining reasonable spatial recharge pattern. We first validated our model in producing reasonable age distributions using a constant flux boundary condition. We then generated different flow fields and age patterns by using various spatially varying flux boundary conditions with different magnitudes and wavelengths. Groundwater recharge was estimated and analysed afterwards using the method at the spatial scale. We illustrated the main findings with a field example in the end. Our results suggest that we can estimate long‐term average groundwater recharge with 10% error in many parts of an aquifer. The size of these areas decreases with the increase in both the amplitude and the wavelength. The chance of obtaining a reasonable groundwater recharge is higher if an age sample is collected from the middle of an aquifer and at downstream areas. Our study also indicates that the method can also be used to estimate local groundwater recharge if age samples are collected close to the water table. However, care must be taken to determine groundwater age regardless of conditions.