Click to view Metadata
Ecologically Significant Groundwater Recharge Areas (ESGRA) are responsible for supporting groundwater discharge that helps sustain sensitive features like coldwater streams and wetlands. The ESGRA delineation methodology employs particle tracking techniques to identify, visualize and quantify the groundwater flow paths between the ecological feature and the recharge area. A groundwater model (MODFLOW) is used to determine groundwater heads and fluxes between all model cells. Virtual “particles” are released in the model and traced or tracked through the flow field to delineate three-dimensional pathways. Particle track endpoints are grouped and analyzed to establish significant amount of recharge in the area that feeds the ecological features. This 2014 model result was built directly on an earlier SWP study to estimate groundwater recharge in the CLOCA watersheds (Earthfx, 2008) and on a study of the rates and directions of groundwater flow across the entire Regional Municipality of Durham and the CLOCA watersheds in particular (Earthfx, 2010).
ESGRA Final Report