Alluvial Aquifer Processes

The global population is expected to grow from more than seven billion at present to nine billion by the year 2050. As a result, resource issues are becoming increasingly severe. The questions raised in connection with natural resources are practical, but also philosophical and political.

Alluvial groundwater is becoming increasingly important for the drinking water supply, but also for agriculture and other human needs. Human civilisations developed in alluviums during the Holocene. Armies, roads, trade and agglomerations largely concentrated in river valleys. Alluviums are resource treasuries (water, forests, farmland, etc.), but at the same time, they are exposed to pressures from the population and economy. These threats to alluvial plains and alluvial aquifers require very careful planning and persistent implementation of protection measures.

Sudden social and natural changes increasingly lead the world into a tangle of global events and problems whose outcomes are not easy to perceive, let alone influence. One of the factors that can help is knowledge or, in other words, expertise focusing on a single problem or area. The ability to synthesise information and master comprehensive models is also extremely important.

This book, a monograph, is a modest attempt to contribute to the understanding of planetary water management, groundwater and certain natural processes in alluviums. It comprehensively encompasses current topics associated with the state, processes and problems of alluvial aquifers and is devoted to professionals, experts, professors and students in advanced stages of learning.

The book is a continuation of sorts of another book released in 2008 by IWA Publishing, Groundwater Management in Large River Basins, edited by Milan A. Dimkić, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Michael Kavanaugh.

The Editor

Preface

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Water management in large alluvial plains

Milan Dimkić, Srđan Kovačević, Aleksandar Čalenić and Ivan Zavadsky

Chapter 3

Alluvial aquifer – The legacy of the quaternary period

Jelena Zarić, David Mitrinović and Milan Dimkić

Chapter 4

Oxic conditions of alluvial aquifers

Milan Dimkić, Mirjana Vojinović Miloradov and Ivana Mihajlović

Chapter 5

Iron incrustation of water wells

Milan Dimkić, Milenko Pušić, David Mitrinović and Slobodan Vujasinović

Chapter 6

Pharmaceutical attenuation processes during filtration in groundwater

Srđan Kovačević and Milan Dimkić

Chapter 7

Removal of pesticides from groundwater by filtration

Nevena Živančev and Milan Dimkić

Chapter 8

Transformation of nitrogen compounds in groundwater

Marija Perović and Milan Dimkić

Chapter 9

Methods for trace analysis of pharmaceuticals and pesticides in water and sediment samples

Ivana Matić-Bujagić, Svetlana Grujić, Tatjana Đurkić and Mila Laušević

Chapter 10

Artificial aquifer recharge and the compression of layers of a hydrogeological complex due to groundwater abstraction

Milan Dimkić, Slobodan Vujasinović and Milan Dotlić

Chapter 11

Drought and alluvial groundwater resources

Dejan Dimkić, Milan Dimkić and Slobodan Vujasinović

Appendix 1

Surface tension, capillarity and viscosity

Srđan Kovačević, Slobodan Vujasinović and Milan Dimkić

Appendix 2

Determining the coefficient of filtration based on data on the granulometric composition of soil

Srđan Kovačević, Slobodan Vujasinović and Milan Dimkić

Appendix 3

Chemical structure and selected properties that influence the fate of pesticides in the environment

Nevena Živančev

Appendix 4

The chronology of the quaternary period

David Mitrinović and Jelena Zarić

Index