Characterising groundwater–surface water interactions in idealised ephemeral stream systems

Transmission losses from the beds of ephemeral streams are thought to be a widespread mechanism of groundwater recharge in arid and semi‐arid regions and support a range of dryland hydro‐ecology. Dryland areas cover ~40% of the Earth's land surface and groundwater resources are often the main source of freshwater. It is commonly assumed that where an unsaturated zone exists beneath a stream, the interaction between surface water and groundwater is unidirectional and that groundwater does not exert a significant feedback on transmission losses. To test this assumption, we conducted a series of numerical model experiments using idealised two‐dimensional channel‐transects to assess the sensitivity and degree of interaction between surface and groundwater for typical dryland ephemeral stream geometries, hydraulic properties and flow regimes. We broaden the use of the term ‘stream–aquifer interactions’ to refer not just to fluxes and water exchange but also to include the ways in which the stream and aquifer have a hydraulic effect on one another. Our results indicate that deep water tables, less frequent streamflow events and/or highly permeable sediments tend to result in limited bi‐directional hydraulic interaction between the stream and the underlying groundwater which, in turn, results in high amounts of infiltration. With shallower initial depth to the water table, higher streamflow frequency and/or lower bed permeability, greater ‘negative’ hydraulic feedback from the groundwater occurs which in turn results in lower amounts of infiltration. Streambed losses eventually reach a constant rate as initial water table depths increase, but only at depths of 10s of metres in some of the cases studied. Our results highlight that bi‐directional stream–aquifer hydraulic interactions in ephemeral streams may be more widespread than is commonly assumed. We conclude that groundwater and surface water should be considered as connected systems for water resource management unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. We present a conceptual model of the transient feedbacks between an ephemeral stream and an underlying groundwater system, and quantify these interactions using a series of numerical model scenarios. We find that groundwater systems potentially exert feedback on transmission losses from ephemeral streams in a much wider set of circumstances than is commonly assumed. Hence, ephemeral surface water and groundwater should be considered as connected systems