How to use an educational sand-box model to enhance the knowledge groundwater dynamics

• Main Author: Nina Rman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Geological Survey of Slovenia 2013-12-01
• Series: Geologija
• Subjects: physical model; aquifer model; groundwater flow model; sand-box aquifer; aquifer in a tank
• Online Access: http://www.geologija-revija.si/dokument.aspx?id=1190
• ISSN: 0016-7789; 1854-620X

Forty-five adults, which do professionally not deal with geology or groundwaters, filled a voluntary questionnaire on groundwater dynamics in Slovenia. The survey pointed out that about a fifth to a quarter of them has a weak knowledge on this topic. Groundwater occurrence, production and pollution are quite well known, excluding a widely spread opinion on subsurface water veins and underground rivers and lakes (which are true only for karstic aquifers), but groundwater protection is much less known. It has turned out that the answers often base on the experience of the interviewee rather than on an understanding of a regional groundwater dynamics. Therefore, we believe that it is worth to start a systematic education on groundwaters not only for geologists but also for general public. The VO-KA company from Ljubljana has given an incentive for development of an educational sand-box model of the Ljubljansko polje aquifer, which will be used to spread knowledge on ground- and drinking water. The model of an inhomogeneous and anisotropic intergranular aquifer has predominately a two-dimensional water flow. It enables visualisation of natural features and anthropogenic on the quantity and quality state of the stored groundwater. It can be used to explain hydrogeological phenomena on various levels of knowledge, from simple visualisation to more complicated mathematical descriptions.