Geophysics PhD Defense, Becca Prentice: "Utilizing Transient Electromagnetic Method to Locate Pathways for River-Sourced Recharge in the San Joaquin Valley"

The importance of water is becoming increasingly apparent across the globe. As more regions experience swings in climate, from extreme dry periods to extreme wet periods, there is growing recognition of the importance of storing excess water during wet periods for use during dry periods. Storing water beneath the ground provides an alternative to reservoirs, which do not always provide sufficient storage and are expensive to build, with associated environmental impacts. Recharging groundwater systems has become a key solution for restoring groundwater levels and increasing water storage, and natural recharge needs to be protected and increased for the sustainable management of groundwater. The goal of this thesis is to locate river-sourced recharge pathways in California’s San Joaquin Valley. I leveraged two geophysical methods, both based on the transient electromagnetic method, one airborne and one ground-based, to map the distribution of sediment types in the subsurface, which is needed to identify pathways for river-sourced recharge.