Engineering Commons^™

Active Layer Groundwater Flow: The Interrelated Effects Of Stratigraphy, Thaw, And Topography, Michael T. O'Connor, M. Bayani Cardenas, Bethany T. Neilson, Kindra D. Nicholaides, George W. Kling

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The external drivers and internal controls of groundwater flow in the thawed “active layer” above permafrost are poorly constrained because they are dynamic and spatially variable. Understanding these controls is critical because groundwater can supply solutes such as dissolved organic matter to surface water bodies. We calculated steady‐state three‐dimensional suprapermafrost groundwater flow through the active layer using measurements of aquifer geometry, saturated thickness, and hydraulic properties collected from two major landscape types over time within a first‐order Arctic watershed. The depth position and thickness of the saturated zone is the dominant control of groundwater flow variability between sites and during …