In Search of Lost Springs: A Protocol for Locating Active and Inactive Springs

Groundwater springs are significant landscape features for humans and the biota that occupies their habitat. Many springs become inactive where groundwater exploitation by humans has lowered the water table or artesian pressure. In order to assess this impact, it is important to identify and locate active, and with more difficulty, inactive springs. Using a variety of archival, environmental and field-based data, this study presents a protocol for the determination of the location and status of springs across the Great Artesian Basin of Australia. This protocol underpins a database of springs, which is not only important for the assessment of spring ecosystems, but also contributes to understand groundwater extraction impacts and hydrogeological processes. The database indicates that 30.0% of discharge (artesian) springs in the Great Artesian Basin are entirely inactive and another 11.8% are partially inactive. For the outcrop (gravity) springs of the Basin, only 1.9% are entirely inactive and 7.4% partially inactive, and for the outcrop springs in the Tertiary sandstone overlying the Basin 30.9% are inactive and 18.2% are partially inactive.