Integrated Hydrogeological Modelling for Sustainable Management of the Brindisi Plain Aquifer (Southern Italy)

Nowadays, changes in precipitation patterns together with the increasing water demand impose a sustainable management where the budget between water availability and demand is positively closed. A parsimonious hydrogeological modelling approach coupled with a soil water balance is developed and applied in order to quantify the hydrological and hydrogeological dynamics in a semi-arid region of the Mediterranean basin. In particular, the present work focuses on the hydrogeological dynamics of the catchment areas of Siedi, Foggia di Rau, Pigonati, and the Palmarini channels located in the Brindisi Plain, Southern Italy. In the last decades, in the Brindisi Plain the anthropization processes as well as the industrial and agricultural development have generated an intensive exploitation of both shallow and deep groundwater resources as well as their qualitative deterioration. A dry hydrologic year (2019–2020) caused a recharge deficit, resulting in a lowering of the groundwater level of the shallow aquifer compared to the expected seasonal value. The results evidence a sensitive natural system, where the variability of the rainfall regime combined with water withdrawal leads to a system that is very vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as the presence of erratic rainfall patterns affecting aquifer recharge. This study represents the first approach to couple a soil moisture balance model and groundwater flow model to assess the impact of changes in rainfall patterns on groundwater recharge for the Brindisi Plain aquifer. The developed integrated hydrogeological model can be applied to other sites with similar hydrogeological features and represents an important tool in order to evaluate the effectiveness of cost-effective sustainable actions for the management of the groundwater resources with respect to land-use practices and socio-economic aspects.