Disentangling hydrodynamic drivers of the Southern Venice (Italy) coastal aquifer via frequency decomposition analysis: Insights, challenges, and limitations

Study region: Shallow coastal aquifer located in the southern part of the Venice lagoon (Italy). Study focus: This study aims to improve the understanding of coastal aquifers’ hydrodynamics by implementing systematic time-series analyses of data. A collection of non-intrinsically consistent time series from hydrological (surface water and groundwater) and meteo-mareographic monitoring networks was obtained from different institutions. Each signal was broken down through a frequency decomposition analysis, isolating the main driving forces to focus on phenomena that occur at different time and spatial scales. New hydrological insights for the region: Results highlighted that the aquifer is highly connected with the Venice lagoon, with a clear fluctuation of piezometric heads induced by tidal major constituents, decreasing landward. Besides, the effects exerted by reclamation canals and pumping stations were also determined and found to increase landward. Despite the relatively simple behaviour of piezometric heads, the groundwater salinity is influenced by additional local factors, like probe depth, wells’ screen length, and vertical salinity distribution along the aquifer. These findings suggested how to make use of limited and sparse data to enhance the conceptual model of coastal aquifer hydrodynamics, while highlighting the limitations of existing monitoring networks. This outcome justified the need for an intrinsically-consistent network of dedicated multi-level samplers to avoid intra-borehole mixing and reliably characterize the groundwater salinity distribution