Surface Water–Groundwater Interactions and Bank Storage during Flooding: A Review

Abstract

The interaction between river floods and groundwater not only replenishes groundwater resources, but also contributes to the attenuation of flood waves and is therefore a hydrologic factor in flood risk management. The magnitude of this interaction is expressed as bank storage, that is, the volume of the surface water that is temporarily stored in the riverbanks and slowly released back into the river after the peak of the flood wave. The amount of bank storage depends not only on the hydrograph of the river, but also on the morphology and hydrogeology of the river valley. This article offers a review of the current understanding and description of water exchange between the river and aquifer, with a focus on exchange due to flood events. The main field measurement methods of river-aquifer interactions, made to determine the properties of the aquifer, are summarized. The foundations of mathematical models are also reviewed, centered on how the surface and groundwater flow models are coupled, as well as on dimensional and process-related simplifications.