Darcy Lectures

About the Darcy Lectures

The Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecture Series in Groundwater Science fosters interest and excellence in groundwater science and technology. It was established in 1986 by the Groundwater Foundation and named in honor of Henry Darcy of France for his 1856 investigations that established the physical basis upon which groundwater hydrogeology has been studied ever since.

Professor Chen Zhu is the 2021-2022 Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer. He has given about 67 lectures at universities, national labs, government agencies (NSF, USGS, EPA), and annual conferences of professional organizations. More than 4,000 attendees from 35 US states, six Canadian provinces, and 25 countries participated in the lectures (see the maps below).

2021-2022 Titles and Abstracts

LECTURE 1: "How Are Geochemical Reactions in Aquifers Connected to Climate Change Mitigation?"

The storage in deep saline aquifers of CO₂ captured at point sources such as coal-fired power plants is a strategy that many regard as critical to limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. But is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) safe? Might reactions between CO₂, the native brine, and the host rocks modify the reservoir structure within ~10,000 years? Where does the injected CO₂ go and what is its fate? Can CO₂ escape to the overlying drinking water aquifers to cause unwanted reactions and degrade water quality? Our ability to understand and predict geochemical reactions in aquifers is critical for answering these questions.

This lecture will give an overview of geological carbon sequestration efforts and of the research advances in reaction kinetics and geochemical modeling necessary to predict the safety of CO₂ storage. Recent innovative research by my students and collaborators on applying non-traditional stable isotope tracers in geochemical kinetics experiments has broken new ground in near-equilibrium reaction kinetics, which is critically relevant to CCS. The Mt. Simon Sandstone in the U.S. Midwest and the Sleipner Project in Norway represent planned and fully operational industrial-scale CO₂ storage projects, respectively. I will present examples of numerical simulations of CO₂ fate and geochemical reactions from both projects. The connections among the hydrosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere as well as the overlap between basic science and pressing societal needs—the hallmark of groundwater sciences—become clear through a tour of the fascinating and intriguing CCS efforts around the world.

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LECTURE 2: "Hydrogeochemistry: Recent Advances and Opportunities and Challenges Ahead"

Chemical and isotopic processes occur in every segment of the hydrological cycle. Hydrogeochemistry — the groundwater subdiscipline that studies these processes — has seen a transformation from “witch’s brew” into a credible science. In particular, we have seen tremendous progress in four research areas: the use of isotopic and chemical tracers to quantify groundwater recharge and submarine groundwater discharge, the kinetics of chemical reactions in aquifers, the mineral-water interface’s control of contaminant fate and transport, and microbial processes’ effects on groundwater chemistry.

In the decades ahead, the siting of geological repositories for nuclear waste, geological carbon sequestration, intensified agriculture and nutrient runoff, and rapid urbanization in the less-developed world will challenge the sustainability of water resources in a warming climate. Hydrogeochemistry is front and center in efforts to address many important issues related to these challenges. As the research progresses, we will likely see watershed-scale models that closely link hydrogeochemistry to atmospheric processes and biogeochemical cycles. Technological breakthroughs in mass spectrometers, synchrotron-based techniques, remote logging using geochemical sensors, and big data science will help hydrogeochemistry play a bigger role in water resources management

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LECTURE 3: "Watershed-Scale Hydrological Models as a Community CyberPlatform for Research, Teaching, and Service to Society"

The grand challenge of sustainability and climate adaptation research requires us as hydrological scientists to transform how we conduct science and how we communicate scientific results to society. Being a relatively politically neutral topic, water resource planning is continually on the docket and cries out for effective communication between scientists and policymakers. Projections of changes in the hydrological cycle are key components of local, regional, and national planning efforts and at the same time provide “upstream” data for “downstream” climate adaptation research such as biodiversity and species migration.

In this presentation, I will share our trials and tribulations of developing a community cyberplatform, https://futurewater.indiana.edu, the core of which is coupled surface-water and groundwater models of the Wabash River basin. The water cycle is predicted to the year 2100 under two Representative Concentration Pathways (4.5 and 8.5) using climate data from an ensemble of 10 general circulation climate models. The models are run and stored on Indiana University’s vast supercomputers. A large team across many disciplines at the university has been assembled for the effort.

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FutureWater

We have gone a step beyond the typical academic research project in making the models available to researchers, practitioners, and the public. The outputs of the hydrological models are visualized with detailed maps and interactive graphs. Data are available for download, and “power users” can run their own models. To help K-12 schools cope with the pandemic, online teaching modules have been developed to allow students to explore water availability under various climate change scenarios near their hometowns. The cyberplatform has attracted keen interest from state and federal agencies, utilities, NGOs, and municipalities in the historically water-rich Wabash River basin. Many challenges remain as we endeavor to advance capabilities in the hindcast, nowcast, and forecast of Earth’s critical zone processes, and at the same time to meaningfully engage regional stakeholders and the public. As hydrological scientists, we have an opportunity to play a critical role in a sustainable future.

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Darcy Lectures

About the Darcy Lectures

LECTURE 1: "How Are Geochemical Reactions in Aquifers Connected to Climate Change Mitigation?"

LECTURE 2: "Hydrogeochemistry: Recent Advances and Opportunities and Challenges Ahead"

LECTURE 3: "Watershed-Scale Hydrological Models as a Community CyberPlatform for Research, Teaching, and Service to Society"

FutureWater

Zhu Laboratory resources