Quantification of groundwater recharge using the chloride mass balance method in a semi-arid mountain terrain, South Interior British Columbia, Canada

Jianhua Ping, Craig Nichol and

Abstract

Groundwater recharge is essential to groundwater resources availability to economy and society development in semiarid areas. Chloride mass balance method to assess groundwater recharge have been review and was employed to quantify groundwater recharge in North Okanagan which is a semiarid mountainous terrain, southern interior British Columbian, Canada. Chloride concentration in precipitation was summed from the historical data observed by Environment Canada. Chloride concentration in groundwater associated with surface water was determined from groundwater samples and previous studies. The results indicated that estimate recharge at valley bottom as 10-16 mm/yr (1.1-1.9%) of precipitation and 7-11 mm/yr (1.8-2.7%) of precipitation on mountain areas appear useful. Errors in the estimated recharge rate maybe large because of the limited data used in this analysis.