Seawater intrusion and retreat in tidally-affected unconfined aquifers: Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations

•The SWR was much quicker than the SWI under a small horizontal hydraulic gradient.•Hysteresis was found in the relationship between the saltwater wedge toe location and salt mass.•The response of SWI and SWR to the inland watertable variations was affected by tidal conditions. Based on combined laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, this paper examined seawater intrusion (SWI) and seawater retreat (SWR) processes caused by abrupt inland watertable changes in a laboratory-scale unconfined aquifer (length of 7.7 m and thickness of 1.0 m) subjected to a synthetic sinusoidal tide. The results showed that the salinity distribution was relatively stable and that SWI and SWR processes were almost temporally symmetrical given relatively large horizontal hydraulic gradients (0.0269, 0.0209 and 0.0149) between the inland watertable and the mean sea level. However, the salt distribution changed significantly in response to the inland watertable variations when the horizontal hydraulic gradient was relatively small (0.0030). The speed of the SWI and SWR response to the inland watertable variations was temporally asymmetric, e.g., SWR was quicker than SWI by a factor of 9 with respect to the observed saltwater wedge toe locations. As a relatively thick mixing zone (transition between freshwater and saltwater zones) was induced by the tide, simulated saltwater wedge toe locations, as indicated by the 5%, 50% and 95% isohalines, changed inconsistently. Different hysteresis behaviors were found in the relationship between the SW toe locations and total salt mass stored in the aquifer. Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that the response of both SWI and SWR to the inland watertable variations could be prolonged by a decreased tidal amplitude or decreased tidal period.