Manager of the Indian site : Jean-Christophe Maréchal

The Hyderabad Site comprises an aquifer in crystalline rocks in a weathering profile characteristic of a tropical environment. The intense anthropic pressures on groundwater resources have led to a need to develop tools for managing the resource.

The principal scientific objectives of current experiments and monitoring studies are the following:

• To characterize the hydrodynamic properties of the weathering profile and to estimate the environment’s level of hydraulic continuity and compartmentation.
• To acquire the data required for testing and validating hydrogeologic modeling methods designed for fractured environments. This includes describing the aquifer’s geometry and quantifying the flows in this highly disturbed natural environment.
• To characterize the transport parameters and their relationships with the hydrodynamic properties
• To study the environment’s chemical reactivity, and especially the changes in the chemical quality of the waters as extraction proceeds
• To identify the spatial and temporal origins of the sources of contaminants in the waters, in particular contaminants of geogenic origin.
• To investigate the aquifer’s vulnerability to climatic variations and agricultural practices