Can shallow temperature measurements on vertical profiles he used to determ
ine the recharge? As a first approach to answer this question, we consider
here the soil temperature data recorded by meteorological stations, A group
of annual cycles allows us to determine the average value of vertical wate
r seepage: in the presence of infiltration the apparent diffusivity deduced
from the damping of the amplitude of the temperature between two different
depths differs from the apparent diffusivity deduced from the temperature
phase shift between the same pair of depths, and the average water flow can
be easily deduced from this difference. For the determination of recharge
over shorter periods of time it would be better to reconsider the sampling
step of the data in both time and space domains. These limitations can be o
vercome by installing specialized vertical temperature profiles. temperatur
e profiles.