Saline Intrusion Model in the Sinaloa River Aquifer, Mexico

The risk of a coastal aquifer to be contaminated by saline intrusion is increased considerably by the effect of factors such as a semi-arid climate and agriculture sustained mainly by irrigation with groundwater. Water samples were taken from wells in the municipality of Guasave, Sinaloa, in order to determine the salinity of groundwater within the coastal portion of the Sinaloa River aquifer. Precisely, we aimed to determine the concentrations of the major present ions, which would allow hydrogeochemical analyses to be carried out, and thus determine the quality of the liquid.

The results of these samples show that there are high concentrations of salinity in the water only in some wells near the coastline. The water density was used to simulate the wedge of seawater intrusion into the aquifer, using a mathematical model (Glover and Ghyben - Herzberg Model). The information generated in the modeling shows that the intrusion wedge comes into contact with the aquifer at a depth where there are no wells currently drilled in the study area, on the other hand, the horizontal distance of the wedge reaches three kilometers.