Groundwater : site scale, catchment scale, basin scale

There are significant groundwater resources in the Thames Basin (Figure 1) supporting approximately 40 per cent of public water supply. Additionally many of the rivers in the catchment are supported by groundwater from the underlying aquifers. Effective management of both groundwater resources and groundwater-dependent ecosystems requires a good understanding of how our aquifers behave. We must also consider how these systems will respond to future changes, in particular climatic variability, land-use change and continued urban development. Our poster presents a few examples of how we are working to improve our understanding of groundwater systems in the Thames Basin, in particular we look at flooding in Oxford, groundwater–surface water interactions in the Chalk and the response of groundwater to a changing water cycle.