University of New South Wales (UNSW) Raw Groundwater Levels Data (2012-2024)

The Groundwater Infrastructure Program aims to enable long-term groundwater resource research in a variable and changing climate to inform sustainable groundwater management. This dataset contains the groundwater levels and temperature (plus corresponding manual dip measurements) across selected NCRIS sites in New South Wales collected by the Groundwater Research at UNSW:

  • The Namoi valley infrastructure has been established to develop an improved understanding of groundwater interaction with the Namoi, and Cockburn Rivers, and Maules Creek. A profile of double piezometers has been installed on the banks of the Namoi, close to the Maules Creek confluence. Maules Creek has both losing and gaining reaches and infrastructure (including two weather stations) has been installed in this part of the catchment and to provide permanent monitoring of the system. The Upper part of Maules Creek has been instrumented to estimate groundwater recharge from ephemeral streams.

  • The Wellington site focuses on fractured rock aquifers. Fractured and cavernous limestone at the Wellington Caves has a combination of boreholes, a weather station and instrumented caves, uniquely using caves as an observatory of vadose zone processes. Fractured granites at Baldry have surface water, ground water, climate and tree water use all instrumented. Fractured Ordovician volcanics and metasediments at the UNSW Wellington Research Station have a borefield of over 40 bores in both alluvial sediments and the adjacent fractured rock aquifer. Abstraction bores in both aquifers facilitate experiments such as aquifer tests (pumping tests) and tracer experiments.

Cite this as

Martin Andersen, Evan Jensen (2024): University of New South Wales (UNSW) Raw Groundwater Levels Data (2012-2024). AuScope. (Dataset). https://doi.org/10.60623/y1ua83ti

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
DataCite DOI Identifier 10.60623/y1ua83ti
Authors
Resource Type Dataset
User Specified Keywords Groundwater Levels,Groundwater Temperature,Hydrology
GCMD Science Keywords
Fields of Research
  • Groundwater hydrology
  • Groundwater quality processes and contaminated land assessment
Deposit Date 2024-10-01
Publication Date 2024-10-16
Embargo Date
Start Date 2012-01-01
End Date 2024-10-01
Locality Maules Creek Catchment, Upper Namoi Basin, Wellington
Location Details
Funding Reference
  • Funder Name: Department of Education, Australian Government
    Funder Identifier: https://ror.org/03z942k20
    Funder Identifier Scheme: ROR
    Funding Program Name: National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS)
    Project Name: Groundwater Infrastructure Program
    Project Identifier Type: Other
Related Resource
Lineage Groundwater data is produced with Solinst Level-loggers and In-Situ Rugged TROLL dataloggers. These dataloggers are pressure transducers that hang down into the water column inside the borehole and measure the water pressure above the logger typically at 30 minute intervals. The pressure is measured as water head in meters above the logger. Some loggers are vented to the atmosphere (In-Situ Rugged TROLL) meaning that they measure relative to the atmosphere. Other loggers are non-vented (Solinst Level-loggers) and measure absolute pressure (water + atmosphere) and needs to be corrected for the atmospheric pressure using a barometric logger (Baro-logger data is provide in separate files for each catchment) to provide the water pressure only. Together with manual dip measurements from a known reference level (typically the top of casing) to the groundwater table one can calculate the absolute groundwater elevation (hydraulic head) relative to a known datum (typically Australian Height Datum) over time. Details for data processing are in the metadata folder.
Supplemental Information Each borehole has between 1 and 15 piezometers inside with well screens at different levels below the ground surface. Most boreholes have either 2 or 4 piezometers and are labelled as BHXX-Y with XX as the borehole number and Y as the piezometer (Y increase with depth, e.g. BHXX-1 being the shallowest). Details of the drillers logs and piezometer screen levels are included in the metadata. The raw data comes in discrete csv files which are downloaded manually from the logger every 3 months – 1 year. Every time the data is downloaded a manual dip measurement is taken with a dip meter typically before and after each download. A dip measurement is taken from the top of the piezometer casing (reference level) to the top of the water column.
Publisher AuScope
Credit Credit to the UNSW Water Research Laboratory and all the researchers and technicians involved in community building, supervising of well drilling, sensor installation & maintenance, dip measurements, data downloads, organization, driving and everything else needed to produce this robust dataset. The project is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program.
Primary Contact Name AuScope Data Repository
Primary Contact Email help@data.auscope.org.au