CAZALAC - Centro del Agua para Zonas Aridas de ALC

International Course on Water Management in Arid Zones

A total of 27 Chilean students attended the course, professionals from the public and private sector, teachers and students who wanted to update and deepen their knowledge regarding theoretical – practical work of assessing basic hydro-geological parameters. In addition, 15 pre-grade students from the Ruhr-University of Bochum and the Technical University of Darmstadt also participated.

The main purpose of this course was to develop an introduction to underground water field methods and assess basic hydro-geological parameters required to predict underground water flows, as well as the transportation of soluble constituents.

Contents

Theoretical classes:

1.	Introduction to underground water systems
1.1	Physical properties of water
1.2	Porous environments
1.3	Kinds of groundwater deposits
1.4	Use of underground water resources
2.	Quantitative hydro-geology
2.1	Climatic water balance
2.2	Infiltration
2.3	Soil humidity and groundwater
2.4	Characteristics of groundwater deposits
2.5	Principles of underground flow
2.6	Hydraulic methods
2.7	Geo-physics in Hydro-geology
3.	Hydro-chemistry
3.1	Water cycle and water chemistry
3.2	Components in a water sample
3.3	Water-rock interaction
3.4	Sampling
3.5	Monitoring
3.6	Analytical methods (emphasizing field methods)
3.7	Data analysis
4.	Underground water management
4.1	Underground water data management
4.2	Fundamentals of Decision Support Systems (DSS)
4.3	Implementation of Decision Support Systems (DSS)

Field practical classes:

Mapping geological units under relevant hydro-geological and environmental aspects.
Determining soil and water sampling locations.
Operation of the drill perforation and small drill holes and soil profile interpretation.
Determining the filed catchment limits.
Determining rock permeability (pumping tests, billet and bond tests).
Operation of geo-hydraulic experiments( infiltration tests, permeability measurement tests) Field hydro-chemical parameters (EC, pH, T, Redox, O2, CO2).
Hydro-chemical analysis of selected parameters in a filed laboratory (anions and cations).
Data analysis, preparing a project report.

Organization

Coordinators:
Guido Soto, Executive Director CAZALAC - gsoto@cazalac.org
Edmundo González, Teacher at University of La Serena - egonzal@userena.cl

Teachers:
Prof. Dr. Stefan Wohnlich, Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany (Hydrogeology)
PD Dr. Frank Wisotzky, Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany (Hydrochemistry)
PD Dr. Steffen Bender, Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany (Groundwater Hydraulics, Decision Support Systems)
Prof. Dr. Ingo Sass Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany (Well Construction and Hydraulics)

Institutional Support:
CAZALAC (Chile)
University of La Serena (Chile)
UNESCO – Government of Flanders (Belgium)
UNESCO Office in Montevideo
University of Bochum (Germany)
University Darmstadt (Germany)