The challenge
Sustainable groundwater management has never been more crucial to safeguarding Australia's water security.
Groundwater supplies 30 per cent of the water consumed across the country. It is a lifeline for residents, all the way from tiny remote communities to major cities such as Perth. It helps sustain major industries like agriculture and mining, and supports delicate ecosystems through times of drought.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth. As rainfall declines across swathes of southern Australia, it has never been more crucial to ensure a sustainable supply of groundwater long into the future.
Regulators, communities and industries require robust, up-to-date data to inform decisions about groundwater use. To provide trusted advice, scientists need fast and precise ways to measure how quickly groundwater recharges after rainfall.
Our response
The TRItium Facility via INgrowth (TRIFIN) uses groundbreaking technology to help scientists build a detailed picture of Australia’s groundwater resources.
The TRIFIN is a precision tool – the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It has the power to detect tritium, a radioactive isotope which is naturally present in rainwater. Scientists can measure the amount of tritium in groundwater to see how recently it was recharged by rainfall. The tritium decays naturally over time, so groundwater with less tritium was recharged longer ago. TRIFIN technology offers high-sensitivity tritium detection by measuring the amount of the noble gas helium-3, that is produced from natural decay of tritium.
If no tritium is found in a groundwater sample, it means the aquifer it came from has not been replenished for more than 50 years. It may have even been recharged over centuries, or even millennia. This research can tell us how fast groundwater is being replenished, and which water sources might be at risk of falling dry over the next few decades. By identifying which aquifers recharge quickly, it can also reveal if they risk becoming contaminated when there is pollution at the surface.
The results
TRIFIN is set to supply vital data bolstering sustainable groundwater use for communities, industries, and the environment.
This valuable data provided by TRIFIN will help authorities and industries manage their use of groundwater sustainably. It benefits communities too, by ensuring safe access to drinking water and informing how much water can be used during times of drought.
The major advantage of the TRIFIN technology is that it can analyse groundwater faster, with a higher degree of automation, using much smaller samples compared to conventional methods. The facility promises to drastically increase the number of groundwater samples which can be processed each year. This will deliver larger data sets to improve groundwater models, and groundwater management.