Groundwater is our planet’s most extracted raw material, but rising populations and climatic variability make coastal aquifers increasingly vulnerable to seawater intrusion. The incursion of saline water into coastal water supply boreholes can threaten public health and lead to massive increases in treatment costs. Although traditional methods of mapping the saline front are either prohibitively expensive or ineffective, monitoring of naturally occurring voltages in the subsurface, known as self-potentials, may represent a low-cost solution to this problem. This talk will present the latest research in the use of self-potentials as an early warning mechanism for vulnerable water supplies.
Malcolm is a second year PhD student at Imperial College London. He has 10 years of experience in the groundwater industry and has worked on water resource projects in the UK, Australia and Africa. During this time, he has provided advice to government bodies, NGOs, water corporations and mining companies. Much of this work involved the use of numerical modelling, hydrochemical analysis and hydraulic testing of boreholes to assess the potential impacts anthropogenic and climatic factors have on groundwater. His current research focuses on assessing the risk that seawater intrusion poses on coastal aquifers.