Artificial recharge of humic ground water

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency of soil in remo ving natural organic matter from humic ground waters using artificial recha rge. The study site, in western Denmark, was a 10 000 m(2) football held of which 2000 m(2) served as an infiltration held. The impact of the artifici al recharge was studied by monitoring the water level and the quality of th e underlying shallow aquifer, The humic ground water contained mainly humic acids with an organic carbon (OC) concentration of 100 to 200 mg C L-1. A total of 5000 m(3) of humic ground water were sprinkled onto the infiltrati on field at an average rate of 4.25 mm h(-1). This resulted in a rise in th e water table of the shallow aquifer, The organic matter concentration of t he water in the shallow aquifer, however, remained below 2.7 mg C L-1. The organic matter concentration of the pore water in the unsaturated zone was measured at the end of the experiment. The organic matter concentration of the pore water decreased from 105 mg C L-1 at 0.5 m to 20 mg C L (1) at 2.5 m under the infiltration field indicating that the soil removed the organi c matter from the humic ground water, From these results we conclude that a rtificial recharge is a possible method for humic ground water treatment.