The island study...

Today was a bit of a crazy day. I had to go to the hospital with Diego who had hurt himself while playing soccer yesterday, but it turned out OK. Just a bit of cleaning of the wound on his hand and some anti-biotics. In the afternoon we suddenly had some time to spare and as we had planned to start the island study today, me, Boris and Diego decided to go to the island and install some divers (these measure the waterlevel, temperature and electrical conductivity) in the piezometers that we placed there last year.

The island study is about the freshwater lens that develops on the salt water in the subsoil of the island by infiltration of rainfall. We use hydrochemistry and geophysics to study its development and changes with the tides. Of course, another reason is that it is nice to have a boat trip, work on a small island, get your feet wet and watch the fishermen go by!


Doing this island study involves a trip to the fishermen's harbour in Costa Nova by car, asking one of the friendly fishermen (in this case Adriano) to bring us there and trying to find the groundwater tubes, that were buried invisibly in the sand. The sand was very hot and we danced around a little bit on our bare feet before we found them. We installed the divers and went back to the sea too cool our feet. Then back to Costa Nova for a good coffee. Next visit will be to download the data.

Tomorrow we are going to install groundwater tubes to study contamination of the groundwater from an illegal, rather smelly, garbage dump in a nature area. The things you have to do as a hydrologist...

Posted by Maarten Waterloo