Funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Environmental Conservation and Science programs is supporting laboratory studies and field experiments by the UC Santa Cruz Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to help develop a system for stormwater collection and groundwater replenishment in drought-affected regions of California.
The project comes at a time when prolonged drought and overuse of the state’s groundwater have resulted in loss of flows in streams and wetlands, degradation of water quality, sinking of the land surface and, in coastal regions, the intrusion of seawater. Andrew Fisher, professor of Earth and planetary sciences, and Chad Saltikov, professor and chair of microbiology and environmental toxicology, are the principal investigators for the three-year project, and will lead their team’s work to create a system of basins and wells that will channel storm runoff into natural underground vaults, preventing runoff from being lost to the sea. As the water from these reservoirs trickles into the aquifer below, it will pass through an active filtering layer that cleanses the water of contaminants — increasing both the quality and the quantity of the groundwater.
Learn more about the project here.
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