military aspects of hydrogeology

Geological Society, London, Special Publications

doi: 10.1144/SP362.1p1-18.

2012, v.362;Geological Society, London, Special Publications John D. Mather and Edward P. F. Rose overviewMilitary aspects of hydrogeology: an introduction and

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Military aspects of hydrogeology: an introduction and overview

JOHN D. MATHER* & EDWARD P. F. ROSE

Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham,

Surrey TW20 0EX, UK

*Corresponding author (e-mail: [email protected])

Abstract: The military aspects of hydrogeology can be categorized into five main fields: the use ofgroundwater to provide a water supply for combatants and to sustain the infrastructure and defenceestablishments supporting them; the influence of near-surface water as a hazard affecting mobility,tunnelling and the placing and detection of mines; contamination arising from the testing, use anddisposal of munitions and hazardous chemicals; training, research and technology transfer; andgroundwater use as a potential source of conflict. In both World Wars, US and German forceswere able to deploy trained hydrogeologists to address such problems, but the prevailing attitudeto applied geology in Britain led to the use of only a few, talented individuals, who gained relevantexperience as their military service progressed. Prior to World War II, existing techniques weregenerally adapted for military use. Significant advances were made in some fields, notably inthe use of Norton tube wells (widely known as Abyssinian wells after their successful use in theAbyssinian War of 1867/1868) and in the development of groundwater prospect maps. Since1945, the need for advice in specific military sectors, including vehicle mobility, explosivethreat detection and hydrological forecasting, has resulted in the growth of a group of individualswho can rightly regard themselves as military hydrogeologists.

Water is essential to life, and it is not by chance thatmany Palaeolithic implements, which demonstratethe antiquity of man, come from river gravels, asthe lives of early human hunter-gatherers were prob-ably conducted in close proximity to rivers andsprings. The first wells may have been created asprimitive man dug into the drying beds of rivers orpools, following the water as it disappeared belowthe surface. Subsequently, as agriculture developed,villages were built adjacent to perennial streams oraround groundwater sources consisting of flowingsprings or dug wells.

The sinking of such wells has a long history, withthe oldest known well, discovered in China, havingbeen dug at least 5700 years ago (Chen 2000).Even earlier examples have been claimed from theMiddle East (Issar 1990). In Egypt, by c. 2980–2750 BC, the technology existed to sink shaftsthrough weak rocks such as poorly cementedlimestones and sandstones, and records exist from2160–2000 BC of well-sinking to supply water tomen cutting monumental stone (Murray 1955). Sub-terranean aqueducts or qanats, constructed as aseries of well-like vertical shafts connected bygently sloping tunnels, originated in the highlandsof western Iran, northern Iraq and eastern Turkeyfrom c. 1000 BC. Groundwater filters into thesegently sloping tunnels, and is carried from itsupland source to be used for drinking and irrigationin settlements located perhaps tens of kilometresaway. Subsequently, the technology spread to adja-cent countries throughout the Middle East and North

Africa and into Europe with the spread of Arabculture (English 1968).

Significant early written references to ground-water and wells come from the Middle East,notably from books of the Bible. Meinzer (1934)has noted that the 26th chapter of Genesis, describ-ing events arguably dating from c. 2000 BC, readslike a water supply memoir. In Genesis the patriarchAbraham and his son Isaac (revered successively bythe Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths) are creditedwith ordering the digging of wells in what is nowsouthern Israel, notably at Beersheva (Fig. 1), andboth became renowned for their success in wellconstruction (Tolman 1937). The earliest recordedtribal disputes between Abraham (Genesis,chapter 21) and Isaac (Genesis, chapter 26) withtheir neighbours concerned rights to groundwateruse – evidence of a potential source of conflictfrom early times.

Humans can survive for only a short period oftime without water, and it has long been the practicein time of warfare for an invading army to cut off orpoison the water supply to the enemy. To cite a Bib-lical example, the prophet Elisha is reported to haveurged the kings of Israel, Judah and Edom, to ‘stop upall the wells’ in their campaign against the kingdomof Moab in c. 850 BC (2 Kings, chapter 3, as trans-lated in the King James Version). Beleaguered citiescould be particularly vulnerable to such means ofattack. In c. 680 BC, King Hezekiah averted thedanger to Jerusalem by the construction of a tunnelrunning from the spring at Gihon outside the city

From: Rose, E. P. F. & Mather, J. D. (eds) Military Aspects of Hydrogeology.Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 362, 1–17, DOI: 10.1144/SP362.1# The Geological Society of London 2012. Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics



walls to the Pool of Siloam within them (2 Chron-icles, chapter 32), a tunnel that exists to this day.

Although conflicts grading into battles havedoubtless been fought since time immemorial, thefirst recorded conflict about which historians canwrite with a degree of confidence (MacDonogh2010) was the Battle of Megiddo in 1456 BCbetween Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt andDurusha of Kadesh. This battle was prolonged,

becoming a seven-month siege because the fortifiedcity of Megiddo had a secure water supply. Megiddo(approximately 100 km north of Jerusalem) had amain well outside its defences, to which its garrisonhad access via an 18 m vertical shaft sunk from thecitadel and into a horizontal tunnel. The siege endedonly when the garrison was starved into submission.Water supply has long been associated with conflictmore widely in this semi-arid ‘Holy Land’ region

Fig. 1. ‘Abraham’s Well’, Beersheva, Israel: an ancient well site re-developed for 20th-century use, arguablythe site of the earliest known dispute over groundwater rights, and one of the objectives of the British military advancefrom Egypt in World War I (Rose 2012a ). Photograph from E.P.F. Rose.

J. D. MATHER & E. P. F. ROSE2



(Issar 1990) and the final paper in this book(Mansour et al. 2012) provides an example ofcurrent tensions there over groundwater allocation.

The provision of front-line water supplies todefensive positions or invading armies has led toinnovations by the armed forces of many nations,but this is not the only way in which groundwateris of concern to the military. All military sites,including airfields, naval dockyards and barrackblocks, sometimes thousands of miles from scenesof potential or actual conflict, require a watersupply, and secure water supplies are commonlyprovided from groundwater (cf. McCaffrey &Bullock 2012). The moisture content of soils andthe presence of marshland and boggy ground as aconsequence of a high water table affect ‘going’,the ease with which men and vehicles can moveother than on roads, and this may greatly influencethe course of a battle. Soil moisture content andgroundwater at a shallow depth can be importantfactors in the detection of landmines and otherburied targets using airborne imagery. The manu-facture of munitions and military equipmentrequires a water supply and, perhaps more impor-tantly, generates effluents and solid wastes thatneed to be disposed of without contaminatinglocal groundwater resources. The use of munitions,either during conflicts or as part of training ortesting programmes, can leave a legacy of contami-nation that can impact groundwater. The develop-ment of innovative technologies by the armedforces can contribute to the development of ground-water supplies and the cleanup of contamination.Wartime demands can also highlight problems inhome countries, acting as a catalyst to bringforward legislative change. Finally, disputes overgroundwater use can be a source of conflict, particu-larly where major aquifers straddle politicalboundaries.

The military aspects of hydrogeology are there-fore reviewed here in terms of five distinct fields:

(1) The provision of adequate water supplies bothto combatants and to support personnel, eitherclose to or away from the point of conflict.

(2) The influence of near-surface water on thecross-country movement of personnel andvehicles, the placing of mines and the detec-tion of explosive ordnance threats.

(3) The impact of the manufacture, testing,use and disposal of munitions on ground-water and the consequent remediation ofcontamination.

(4) The training of military personnel in hydro-geology, technical innovation and the crossfertilization that may take place between themilitary and civilian sectors.

(5) Groundwater as a potential source of conflict.

This review puts work described in all subsequentpapers in this volume into a broader context. In sodoing, it provides a comparative account of ground-water use by armed forces of both the UK and USAand those of Germany/Austria–Hungary, whileoutlining the historical development of ‘militaryhydrogeology’ as the technology of warfare hasbecome increasingly sophisticated.

Provision of water supplies

Historically, as human population densities rose, ourancestors increasingly chose defendable positionsfor their settlements: earthworks dating from thefirst millennium BC are still a common and some-times spectacular feature of the landscape of muchof Europe, particularly England. These hill fortsneeded a water supply, but there is little evidenceof groundwater exploitation. Few were built morethan one mile (1.6 km) from a surface watersupply, and it has been suggested that naturalponds, dew ponds or rainwater from hut roofschannelled into clay-lined storage pits may haveprovided short-term alternative sources (Dyer1992). Later, stone-built forts were constructed inEurope, North Africa and the Middle East by theRomans, and subsequently in circum-Mediterraneanregions by the Byzantine and Islamic empires, andmany of these are known to have obtained waterfrom wells.

In England, following the departure of theRoman legions in 410 AD, there was a lull in theconstruction of stone fortifications until the Normanconquest of 1066. After this, castles became afeature of the landscape, changing over the next500 years to reflect advances in weapon technology.To survive a lengthy siege, each castle garrisonrequired a secure water supply, commonly providedby one or more wells within the confines of itsdefences (Neaverson 1947; Ruckley 1990; Halsall2000). As England became less prone to internaldynastic strife, and especially after union with Scot-land to form the United Kingdom in 1707, fortifica-tion was concentrated on coastal areas to repel apotential sea-borne attack. Potable water is notalways readily available at coastal sites and the pro-vision of a secure supply may not be a straightfor-ward undertaking. Mather (2012a) describes suchan example, in which the water supply to Britishgarrisons on both sides of the Thames estuary wasenhanced, at considerable expense, to improve thedefences of London against amphibious attackfrom Dutch and later French forces in the 18thcentury. Robins et al. (2012) include a referenceto another notable example, Fort Regent on theChannel Island of Jersey, where a well was exca-vated through granite to a depth of 72 m in 1806–1808, yielding a supposedly inexhaustible supply

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 3



of water. Later in the 19th century ‘PalmerstonForts’, built on the recommendation of a RoyalCommission in 1860 to protect important RoyalNavy bases from attack (Crick 2012), were typicallyprovided with their own wells or storage tanks,holding water from civilian sources, sufficient fora 14-day supply. As part of the scheme, three fortswere built offshore on shoals in the Solent (thestrait separating the Isle of Wight from the Englishmainland) to protect the eastern approaches to Ports-mouth Harbour. Each had a fresh-water well in thecentre of its core (Mitchell & Moore 1993; Moore1997), the construction of which posed considerableproblems. Cylinders, 6 ft (1.8 m) in diameter weresunk to the base of the recent marine deposits, andborings were then continued into rocks of the under-lying Bracklesham Group of Middle Eocene age(Whitaker 1910). Water in sands to a depth of150–200 ft (46–61 m) was brackish, but an under-lying greenish sandy clay, some 200 ft (61 m) in thick-ness, confined water in deeper sands that yielded asupply of excellent, though very soft, fresh water.

In modern conflicts, combatants, whetherdeployed in defence or attack, require potablewater for drinking and cooking, but may utilizewater of lesser quality for washing and non-personaluses such as mixing concrete, cooling engines andservicing laundries. In the Gallipoli campaignduring World War I, troops of the 1st AustralianDivision sometimes operated at an extreme of aslittle as 1.5 l/day/man of potable water (Rose2012a). However, under normal conditions, andespecially in non-arid regions such as the WesternFront across Belgium and northern France,demand was much higher. For the British Army inFrance, the scale adopted was 45 l/day/man forall purposes – drinking, cooking and ablution –and the same per horse or mule. In World War II,the German Army worked on the basis of apotable water ration of 7.5 l/day for soldiers in thefield, which could be reduced to 2.0 l/day for alimited periodunderemergencyconditions (Willig&Hausler 2012b). Methods of securing such suppliesdepend to a large extent on whether conflict is essen-tially mobile or static.

In the initial stages of conflict, troops may sweeprapidly through populated country where they areable to use existing water supplies. Under suchconditions, the military requirement is for detailedinformation on existing facilities so that thesecan be secured rapidly before defenders have hadan opportunity to destroy or pollute them, thusdenying their use to the enemy. This latter policywas implemented by the Russians to help counterthe invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon Itowards Moscow in 1812. It was implemented alsoby the Germans in World War I, when they madea strategic withdrawal in northern France in 1917,

devastating a 30 km strip of land as they went(Willig & Hausler 2012b).

The need for information prior to an invasion orthe initiation of hostilities requires a detailed exam-ination of existing water resource data. Primary datasources include published geological maps andmemoirs, as well as topographical maps that showrivers and may indicate the position of springs,wells and water works. The initial task of W.B.R.King, when appointed the first British militarygeologist soon after the start of World War I, wastherefore to study information available at theGeological Survey of Great Britain on the geologyand hydrogeology of Belgium and NorthernFrance, with particular regard to borings for water(Rose 2012a). Similarly, in preparation for Oper-ation Sea Lion, the invasion of England plannedfor September 1940 but eventually abandoned,German geologists compiled a large number of‘water supply’ maps and explanatory leaflets basedon British topographical and geological maps pub-lished by the Ordnance and Geological Surveys(Willig & Hausler 2012b). Such surveys are stillrequired today. For example, the US Army Corpsof Engineers provided water resources informationto units preparing to deploy to Kuwait followingits invasion by Iraq in 1990 (Gellasch 2012), andBritish Territorial Army geologists providedsimilar advice to units deploying to Iraq in 2003and Afghanistan in 2005 (Dow & Rose 2012).

Arid regions create particular problems becausethey are sparsely populated, and potable waterresources are scarce and often confined to scatteredoases. Water supply was a problem to combatantsin the Palestine Campaign of World War I (Rose2012a; Willig & Hausler 2012a ). More extensiveproblems were encountered by forces on bothsides campaigning in North Africa during WorldWar II. These were acute for mechanized German–Italian troops as they advanced rapidly acrossLibya in 1941 and, with the ebb and flow of battle,into Egypt in 1942, before defeat at El Alamein andretreat to eventual surrender in Tunisia in May1943 (Willig & Hausler 2012b). It was calculatedinitially that 75 trucks each carrying 85 jerry canswith a capacity of 20 l were required for transportingthe daily requirements of just one army divisionbetween water supply points. However, bothBritish and German forces came to make significantuse of drilled boreholes to reduce the need for long-distance water transport, and wells sited with geol-ogist guidance were progressively developed as theconflict oscillated across North Africa (Rose2012b; Willig & Hausler 2012b).

Once areas are occupied or warfare becomesstatic there is time to improve existing watersupply facilities or develop new sources. This iswhere hydrogeological advice becomes essential




in order to maximize the use of resources andprevent the drilling of dry wells. Papers in thisvolume report on the work of earth scientistsattached to German, US and British forces in WorldWar I (Gellasch 2012; Rose 2012a; Willig &Hausler 2012a ), World War II (Gellasch 2012;Robins et al. 2012; Rose 2012b; Willig & Hausler2012b) and subsequent conflicts (Dow & Rose2012; Gellasch 2012; Willig 2012).

The emphasis here has been on land forces, asthese have provided by far the greatest demand.However, naval forces are sustained by land basesthat also require adequate water supplies, for them-selves and the ships they provision. This require-ment has sometimes generated innovative use ofpotential resources, for example on Gibraltar(Rose et al. 2004). From their beginnings in WorldWar I, the development of air forces has been amajor feature of the 20th century. In the UK, sincethe formation of the Royal Flying Corps (laterre-named the Royal Air Force) in 1912, c. 1250sites have been developed at various times as mili-tary airfields, with a peak of 856 active airfieldsand the occupation of nearly 0.67% of the nationalland surface in 1945, at the end of World War II(Blake 2000). Criteria for peak-time site selectionincluded ground permeability (facilitating swiftdrainage of surface water, reducing the costs ofinstalling drains and avoiding hazards such as aqua-planing) and diurnal and seasonal temperature andsoil moisture content changes (influencing suscepti-bility of the ground to cracking, heave and subsi-dence due to freeze–thaw and swell–shrinkcycles). As airfields increased in size as well asnumbers, so did the number of associated troopsand the local requirement for water. During WorldWar II, the German air force included serving geol-ogists who guided the siting and construction of air-fields and anti-aircraft gun sites and the provision ofadequate water supplies (Rose & Willig in press).Similar tasks for British and US air forces wereincluded amongst those dealt with by geologistsand engineers serving under army command(Gellasch 2012; Rose 2012b).

World War I

World War I, the Great War of 1914–1918, waswarfare on an unprecedented scale, and served asa catalyst for the adoption or development of newtechnologies by the armies of both sides in the con-flict, especially on the Western Front acrossBelgium and northern France. As millions oftroops were concentrated into a relatively narrowand static zone of operations, groundwater locallybecame an essential source of water supply and itscontamination a hazard to health. Rose (2012a)shows how, at the start of the war, the British

Army lacked the means to exploit groundwaterfrom deep aquifers under operational conditions,but unprecedented high troop concentrations led tothe importation of ‘portable’ drilling rigs from theUSA to equip units of Royal Engineers for thispurpose. With the means to exploit deep aquifersit looked to the Geological Survey of Great Britain(since re-named the British Geological Survey) forhelp (Mather 2012b; Rose 2012a), leading to theappointment from 1915 of Lieutenant (laterCaptain) W.B.R. King as a geologist to advise onwater supply with the headquarters staff of theBritish Expeditionary Force in France. The BritishArmy deployed pre-existing civilian well-drillingtechnology to new geographical areas, generatedconsiderable quantities of new data on groundwaterlocations in northern France, parts of the MiddleEast and the Balkans, and also pioneered the compi-lation of a number of groundwater prospect maps forparts of western Europe.

US troops became involved in the conflict on theWestern Front only in the last year of the war, andtherefore deployed only a few geologists beforethe end of hostilities, led by Major (later Lieutenant-Colonel) A.H. Brooks, recruited from the USGeological Survey (Gellasch 2012). US militarygeological work on the Western Front has beenextensively documented by Brooks (1920), andexamples of US hydrogeological maps for theirpart of the Western Front, to the south of the British-held area and on older bedrock, have been illustratedby Rose (2009).

Although British and US armed forces made useof only a few military geologists during World WarI, the Germans and their Austro-Hungarian alliesmade use of significantly more, seemingly at least250–300 in total. Most were concentrated on theWestern Front, and were assigned tasks relating towater supply, both the provision of potable waterand the avoidance of contamination of ground orsurface waters. Not only were there far more hydro-geologists serving with the German Army than withthe British and US (and indeed French) armies com-bined, but they were operational across a greatergeographical area and range of geological terrainsfrom the early months of the war, so achieving tech-nical results far more extensive than those of theAllies (Willig & Hausler 2012a). Rose et al.(2000) have compared the military use of geologistson opposing sides in the war, and Rose (2009) hasillustrated and described examples of severalBritish, German and US military hydrogeologicalmaps from this period.

World War II

Both sides demobilized their military hydrogeolo-gists following the end of hostilities in 1918, and




the expertise had to be acquired anew from 1939at the beginning of World War II. However,unlike World War I, where the battle lines andso troop concentrations were relatively static forlong periods, World War II was more a war ofmanoeuvre. Water supplies had to be provided formechanized armies capable of swifter movementthan in World War I, and for armies operationalacross much wider geographical areas and climaticregimes.

The British mobilized both military hydrogeolo-gical and well-drilling expertise only on the out-break of war, deploying exactly the same geologist(W.B.R. King) to the same area (the WesternFront) in the same role as in World War I (Rose2012b). However, this time the British Expedition-ary Force was soon defeated and evacuated, andfor much of the war the Middle East became thefocus of British military well-drilling and so mili-tary uses of hydrogeology. F.W. Shotton, recruitedfrom the University of Cambridge and based inEgypt, used his geological knowledge from 1941to guide deployment of the Royal Engineers’ well-boring sections operating in the Middle East, andwas well placed to draw on the resources of the Geo-logical Survey of Egypt. Additional hydrogeologi-cal expertise was contributed by the South AfricanEngineer Corps and by a small number of geologistsserving as officers within the Royal Engineers’boring sections. Techniques were generally thosein standard use, but geophysical prospectingmethods were widely applied. Subsequently, plan-ning for the Allied landings in Normandy onD-Day, 6 June 1944, was partly guided by ground-water prospect maps for the coastal areas of northernFrance, prepared as tracing overlays for use with thecorresponding 1:50 000 topographical maps. Thir-teen maps similar in style but 1:250 000 in scalewere later compiled for northern France, Belgiumand Luxembourg, and nine sheets extended cover-age across northern Germany. These maps guidedthe emplacement of over 20 military boreholes inNormandy, a similar number in Belgium, and wereused to initiate British military well drilling innorthern Germany. Moreover, within the UK,rapid wartime growth in the size of the armedforces and the arrival of contingents of Alliedtroops from overseas generated a considerabledemand for water to service the growth in numberand/or size of airfields, camps and base installations(Mather 2012b).

After the USA entered the war in December1941, the amount of military work carried out bythe US Geological Survey (USGS) increasedrapidly, leading to the formation of a MilitaryGeology Unit in June 1942. Its work focusedprimarily on strategic and operational planning, par-ticularly terrain intelligence reports for designated

areas, which included sections on water supply.The latter listed groundwater sources together withdata on quantity and quality (Gellasch 2012).Notably, water supply maps were compiled for thewhole of Italy and printed in theatre by the BritishRoyal Engineers. Hydrogeologists from the USGSalso enlisted in the army to work on the develop-ment of groundwater supplies, and by 1943 some10 hydrogeologists were working in Europe andNorth Africa. In contrast, professional geology inBritain was treated as a reserved occupation fromwhich combatants could not be drawn and theexperience of Survey geologists could not be uti-lized in the same way (Mather 2012b).

The military geological service formed withinthe German Army during World War I was dis-banded at the close of hostilities, but re-founded in1937 and included many veteran geologists of theearlier conflict. Germany thus began the war witha military geological heritage significantly greaterthan that of the Allies (Willig & Hausler 2012b).During the war it developed the largest organizationever to be dedicated to military applications ofgeology, with problems of water supply forming asignificant proportion of its work. With the expertiseit developed, the German Army was equipped tomake use of groundwater under conditions thatranged from the extreme cold of the Eastern Frontto the heat of North Africa. German geologists pre-dicted water supply conditions in scheduled futurecombat zones (Willig & Hausler 2012b) and under-took more detailed studies of occupied territory(Robins et al. 2012). They produced a variety of‘water supply’ maps at scales from 1:500 000 to1:50 000 depending on the scale of the operationand the amount of published data accessible. Ofall the countries taking part in the conflict,Germany made most use of military geologicalexpertise in guiding the search for water supplies.

Post World War II

Following the end of World War II in 1945, mostgeologists providing technical advice to the militaryreturned to civilian life. It was only in the USA thatthe subject of military geology was not abandoned.The USGS continued to provide assistance to USforces. Its Military Geology Unit was renamed theMilitary Geology Branch and incorporated intothe formal structure of the USGS. However, workon water resources assumed less importance thanduring the two World Wars (Gellasch 2012). Inthe UK, after a period during which the militaryhad no in-house geological support, from 1949onwards a few geologists were commissioned toserve as part-time specialists within the reservearmy, including a notable Geological Surveywater supply geologist, Austin Woodland (Rose




& Hughes 1993). Their successors occupy a similarrole today. Since 1964 a specialist well-drilling andwater development team within the regular army hasprovided expertise in the abstraction, storage, treat-ment and distribution of water (Dow & Rose 2012).An army was re-formed in the Federal Republic ofGermany in 1956 and from the early 1960s hasbeen supported by full-time geologists employedas civilians but with reserve army ranks. Thisgroup reached a peak in number of about 20 in the1980s, with the provision of emergency watersupplies for military sites among its principal tasks(Willig 2012).

Geologists from the main combatants in WorldWar II, now allies, have worked on water supplyproblems in most of the areas in which conflictshave since developed. These include Vietnam (Gel-lasch 2012), the Persian/Arabian Gulf (Knowles &Wedge 1998), Bosnia (Nathanail 1998), Somaliaand Kosovo (Willig 2012) and currently Iraq andAfghanistan (Dow & Rose 2012; Gellasch 2012;Willig 2012). Highlights of their work include theuse of remote sensing to determine the locationof active wells in denied areas of Iraq at the timeof the Gulf War, the use of borehole geophysicalmeasurements to support well drilling, and the useof down-the-hole-hammer drilling in Afghanistan.One feature has been the recognition that militaryunits may not be appropriately equipped for drillingin new conflict zones. Thus the US Army deployedseven well-drilling detachments to base areas inSaudi Arabia at the time of the Gulf War. Althoughtheir drilling rigs were new, they were designedfor use in Germany and so to drill only to 180 m,whereas the target aquifer in northern SaudiArabia was found to lie at a depth of more than

450 m. Moreover, a typical well completion timewas 60 days, too long to provide the water neededfor military operations. This problem was resolvedby hiring civilian contractors (Gellasch 2012).

Influence of near-surface water

In addition to its importance in providing securewater supplies for combatants, groundwater influ-ences military campaigns in other ways. Groundmade unexpectedly muddy following rainfall canaffect the strength of soils and the mobility oftroops, tanks and other vehicles (Fig. 2). Forexample, just after mid-day on 18 June 1815, nearWaterloo in Belgium, a French army commandedby the Emperor Napoleon finally pressed an attackdelayed for several hours by ground too wet toallow the deployment of supporting artillery. Thedelay proved disastrous, as it allowed time for Prus-sian forces to join the opposing British army led bythe Duke of Wellington. In consequence, Napo-leon’s last military thrust, one of the great battlesof history, died on the fields of Waterloo, as muchthe result of wet ground as the tenacity of thecoalition troops (MacDonogh 2010; cf. Priddyet al. 2012).

Surface water has long been recognized as abarrier to the movement of land forces. Castleswere protected where feasible by a moat, a water-filled ditch, outside their perimeter walls. Riversand their crossings (bridges or fords) and/or thepresence of marshy or boggy ground have fre-quently influenced the site and outcome of battles.Examples from Britain, described by Younger(2012), illustrate how subtle landscape featuresassociated with groundwater discharge affected the

Fig. 2. Tanks bogged in mud near Ypres, Belgium, in World War I. Water associated with Cenozoic clays andsandstones created problems for cross-country movement and the excavation of tunnels and ‘dugouts’. From Anon.(1922b).




outcome of two battles fought between the Englishand Scots. In 1513, despite outnumbering theirEnglish foes, the Scots lost the battle of FloddenField in northern England a few kilometres southof the Anglo/Scottish border, because they failedto identify the presence of marshy ground, inwhich their columns of pikemen floundered. Over200 years later, at the battle of Prestonpans a fewkilometres east of Edinburgh, a Jacobite army con-sisting mainly of Gaelic-speaking Scots defeated amixed English/Scots army raised by the Hanover-ian Crown of the United Kingdom by finding away around marshland upon which the Hanover-ian commander had been relying as a naturaldefensive feature. Younger’s paper indicates thathydrogeologists preparing for military duty wouldbe well advised to include studies of groundwatergeomorphology!

Tanks first appeared on the battlefield in 1916when they were used by the British Army.However, problems were apparent from the outset,particularly with respect to bogging in soft ground(Fig. 2). Such problems became more acute in themore mechanized conflict of World War II.Bogging by soft sand led to the development of‘going’ maps by both sides in North Africa, withwhich tracked or wheeled vehicles were guidedto avoid cross-country routes across unsuitableground (Greenwood 2012; Willig & Hausler2012b). Following the Allied landings in Normandyon D-Day, 6 June 1944, armoured units contestedone another over ground in which conditionsvaried markedly with the weather, periods of rain-fall producing significant changes in soil moistureand so ground trafficability. Factors influencingthe movement of tracked vehicles over water-softened ground were therefore studied in the USAand notably by a ‘Mud Committee’ established bythe British Army in 1944 (Greenwood 2012). Thismade use of the then new science of soil mechanicsto develop a method of classifying soils for militarypurposes. Research initiated in the heat of conflictduring World War II has since been carriedforward, in particular by the US Army, aimed atequipping soldiers with the knowledge needed toaccount for the impact of near-surface hydrogeol-ogy on mobility (Priddy et al. 2012). Among otherthings, such work has concentrated on developingmethods for quickly assessing soil conditions toensure adequate bearing capacity for roads and air-fields, which need to be designated for rapid con-struction or repair as armies advance.

Military mining became a major feature ofWorld War I, rapidly adopted by both sides on theWestern Front. Tunnels were driven under enemypositions, packed with explosives, and detonatedto breach the overlying trenches and fortifications.At the peak of operations, some 25 000 British and

Commonwealth troops were assigned as tunnellersin efforts to breach German lines. Locally highwater tables in Cenozoic clastic sediments, andespecially their seasonal fluctuation (up to 9 m) inparts of the country underlain by Cretaceous Chalk(Branagan 2005), had considerable influence onmine construction and on the excavation of under-ground facilities (‘dugouts’), built to shelter troopsfrom artillery, mortar and aerial bombardment. Geo-logical guidance was given to British tunnellers byMajor (later Lieutenant-Colonel) T.W. EdgeworthDavid, Professor of Geology at the University ofSydney in Australia, who enlisted at the age of 57and arrived in Europe with the Australian MiningCorps in May 1916. Together with the British geol-ogist W.B.R. King (based at the same headquartersin France), he prepared tables for the TunnellingCompanies showing how much the water tablewould rise, assuming maximum rainfall over thewinter months. These tables proved of greatpractical value.

Doyle (2012) gives examples of British miningoperations in Flanders, which began in late 1914.The Cenozoic geology of this area features inter-bedded sands and clays. Mine galleries could bedriven with relative ease (and silence) in clay, butneeded to be supported to prevent crushing and col-lapse as a result of swelling clay minerals. Water-bearing sands were negotiated using a techniqueknown as ‘tubbing’, in which cast steel sections,and later concrete rings, were driven to reach theclays beneath. The Germans also used this technique(Willig & Hausler 2012a), but failed to countermineBritish tunnelling at Messines in 1917, where near-simultaneous detonation of 19 mines became themost successful example of mine warfare inhistory (Doyle 2012).

In more recent conflicts, ‘mine’ as a militaryterm has come to mean not a deep tunnel filledwith explosive for major detonation, but a smallerexplosive device, buried only shallowly in theground, to be detonated by the unwary foot orvehicle. The detection of such explosive devicesby remotely sensed imagery, and the differentiationof real threats from false alarms, depends to a sig-nificant extent on a scientific understanding of thenear-surface hydrogeological properties of soils.Hydrogeology controls several of the critical pro-cesses that contribute to the complex sensorimages that can currently be obtained from aero-planes and/or satellites (Howington et al. 2012).To enable a better understanding of the various com-ponents that contribute to images, a computationaltest bed has been developed in the USA toproduce realistic synthetic imagery from remotesensors operating in the visible and infrared portionsof the electromagnetic spectrum. This is being usedto isolate the phenomena behind the detection




physics and is a striking example of the expandingrole of the ‘military hydrogeologist’ from someonewho can find water to one able to apply knowledgeof hydrogeological processes to a range of otherproblems.

Groundwater contamination and

remediation

As with any other industry, the manufacture, testingand disposal of munitions, and the hazardous chemi-cals used in tasks such as degreasing, deicing anddefoliation, give rise to waste products, the thought-less disposal of which can result in land andwater contamination. For example, in 1992 the USDepartment of Defense estimated that, as a resultof its waste disposal practices, about 11 000individual sites required some form of remedialaction. Much of this contamination involved theland disposal of waste related to explosives, pet-roleum, oils and lubricants, industrial solvents,heavy metals and other military-unique chemicals(Miller & Foran 2012).

Arguably the best known example, quoted inmany hydrogeological textbooks (e.g. Freeze &Cherry 1979; Fetter 1993) is that of the USArmy’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal at Denver in theUSA. Here, wastewater from the manufacture ofnerve gas and pesticides was discharged into evap-oration ponds from 1942. Contamination of nearbyfarm wells was first detected in 1951 and wasespecially severe in 1954, a drought year when irri-gated crops died. Groundwater contaminationextended at least 8 miles (12 km) from the ponds,indicated by elevated chloride concentrations.Eventually it was demonstrated that groundwaterbeneath and close to the ponds contained dozensof synthetic chemicals. A cut-off wall was con-structed, across a bedrock valley containing per-meable unconsolidated deposits, to stop furtherspread of the contaminant plume. Contaminatedwater was pumped from the up-gradient side ofthe cut-off wall, treated, and then returned to theaquifer through injection wells on the down-gradient side of the wall. Later, contaminated waste-water was injected, under pressure, into a 3671 mborehole through sedimentary rocks into underlyingfractured schist and granite gneiss. One monthafter the first injection of wastewater an earthquakeoccurred and was followed by some 710 smalltremors during the period April 1962 to September1965. The epicentres of the majority of the shockswere located within a circular area centred at theRocky Mountain Arsenal. Increases in fluid pressurecreated by the injections had the effect of triggeringsmall movements on a pre-existing fault at depthin the vicinity of the injection borehole.

Many of the problems associated with contami-nation at military and defence sites are not dissimi-lar to those found in equivalent non-military sitesand in urban and industrial areas. Thus, similar pro-blems arise from the spillage and/or leakage offuel at a military airfield to those that arise at a com-mercial airport such as London Heathrow (Clark &Sims 1998). Often, differences are those of scale,with traditional pump-and-treat technologies suit-able for small industrial spillages being impracticalto renovate aquifers contaminated with hundreds ofmillions of litres of fuel at a defence site (Miller &Foran 2012). However, some contaminated sitesare unique to the military. These include grenaderanges as well as burning grounds and detonationsites for old ammunition where released chemicalscan leach into groundwater.

Miller & Foran (2012) describe some of theresearch currently in progress in the USA, whereenvironmental restoration programmes previouslypursued by the individual services were rationalizedin 1989 to address the cleanup of sites contami-nated by past military use. Current efforts areconcentrated in four main areas: site investigation,groundwater modelling, treatment technologiesand the fate/impact of potential contaminants.Cleanup technologies are increasingly movingtowards in situ solutions and away from methodsthat remove sediment or groundwater. An exampleis the use of lime at grenade ranges, where resultsshow that mixing hydrated lime with soils to main-tain a pH above 10.5, can reduce, by 70%, the con-centration of RDX in pore waters. RDX, an acronymfor hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine, is theprimary explosive in hand grenades and is a likelygroundwater contaminant because of its slow dissol-ution rate and low adsorption onto soils. In Korea,quicklime, in this case derived from waste oystershells roasted at high temperature, has been usedto stabilize copper-contaminated soils on an armyfiring range (Moon et al. 2011). Such work hasdemonstrated that the addition of lime to raise pHcan be a simple and effective treatment for rangescontaminated with metal fragments and munitionsconstituents such as RDX.

Training, research and technical

developments

In the UK, the provision of an adequate water supplyis such a basic requirement that the skills ofidentifying sites and digging wells were presumablypassed down through the generations by earlymilitary engineers. However, digging wells wasan expensive and time-consuming process: forexample, a 330 ft (101 m) deep well at Sheernesson the southern side of the Thames Estuary took




some 13 months to complete (Mather 2012a).Drilled boreholes are normally much quicker andmore cost-effective and by 1723 they were beingused to deepen existing dug wells. These early bore-holes were drilled using hand augers and so wereonly viable in poorly consolidated ground. InBritain it was not until the early 19th century thatpercussion rigs began to be employed by militaryengineers, being introduced c. 1835 (Jebb 1842;Bromehead 1942) by Colonel Charles WilliamPasley (later to become General Sir Charles Pasleyand Europe’s leading expert on demolitions andsiege warfare) (Porter 1889). In 1812, as a major,he was appointed the founding Director of theRoyal Engineer Establishment (later to becomethe [Royal] School of Military Engineering),Chatham. He remained Director until promoted tomajor-general in 1841. Training was soon providedat the School on the siting and drilling of watersupply boreholes from both engineering andgeological perspectives.

Another Royal Engineer officer, Major JoshuaJebb (later Sir Joshua and Surveyor General ofPrisons) soon published a guide to the theory andpractice of sinking artesian wells (Jebb 1842). Afew years later, a massive three-volume textbook,Aide Memoire to the Military Sciences, was pub-lished to advise members of the ‘scientific corps’(artillery and engineers) of the British and EastIndia Company’s armies on technical aspects oftheir work (Lewis et al. 1846–52). This quicklywent to a second edition (Lewis et al. 1853–62).Both editions included brief articles by the civiliancivil engineer G.R. Burnell on water supply andwells. Courses of lectures, which included watersupply, were given subsequently at the [Royal]School of Military Engineering, in 1873 byWilliam Henry Corfield (1874) and later by Alexan-der Binnie (1878) and James Mansergh (1882). Cor-field was then Professor of Hygiene at UniversityCollege London and the others were distinguishedcivilian engineers, both serving in time as Presidentsof the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The Aide Memoire also included a substantialarticle on geology by Joseph Ellison Portlock, aRoyal Engineers officer, who rose to the rank ofmajor-general and served as President of the Geo-logical Society of London. His article (Portlock1848) included a description of the principles ofhydrogeology, of boring apparatus for well drilling(e.g. Fig. 3) and summarized techniques then inuse. Portlock may have influenced the decision tointroduce geology into the curriculum at the RoyalMilitary College, Sandhurst, in 1858. However,there is little evidence to suggest that the geologyof water supply was of other than a passing interestto the British Army. Geological teaching at officer-training establishments in the UK was always at an

elementary level and was largely discontinuedbefore the end of the 19th century (Rose 2012a).

The lack of any real training in either geology orhydrogeology amongst British military engineers,or appreciation of the significance of the subjectamongst field commanders, became evident afterthe start of World War I, as opposing armies

Fig. 3. Part of a plate from the authoritative AideMemoire to the Military Sciences that illustrated thethree ‘most remarkable’ methods of boring inmid-19th century use: an auger (for soft soils) or chisels(for rocks), connected with the surface by jointed rods;the ‘Chinese’ method by percussion alone, in which thetool is suspended by a cable; and the ‘system of Fauvelle’(shown here), using a hollow borer in which the cuttingtool is of larger diameter than the hollow stem. In theconfiguration shown, the hollow boring tube is arrangedas a siphon. A head of water is maintained in the surfacereservoir and water passes down the annular space,ascending up the stem and carrying with it the drillingcuttings. The amount of water required to keep the boringtool clear led to the method being generally abandonedby c. 1875 (Spon 1875). From Portlock (1848).




expanded to an unprecedented size. Boring plantwas first ordered for the British Army in the springof 1915, and five Water Boring Sections of theRoyal Engineers were created subsequently.W.B.R. King sited boreholes and developed special-ist water supply maps for British areas of theWestern Front in Belgium and northern France,roles for which he had no pre-war experience.Both geologist and drilling crews had to learnmostly ‘on the job’. At the end of the war, boththe few British military geologists and the BoringSections were demobilized. However, lessonslearned during the conflict were distilled into a text-book on water supply (Anon. 1922a), which pro-vided the basis for training of Royal Engineersofficers between the wars. Although demonstratingthe importance of geology for guiding emplacementof deep boreholes, even the revised edition of thisbook (Anon. 1936) advised that the employmentof dowsers might save time and possibly fruitlesslabour in well sinking, suggesting that after 100years of lectures and manuals only limited progresshad been made in teaching British military engin-eers the value of geology. However, following theoutbreak of World War II, the British Army wasquick to deploy a geologist officer to guide well dril-ling in France, soon deployed one in this role to theMiddle East, and included geologists among theofficers of the [Water] Boring Sections progress-ively raised during the conflict (Rose 2012b). Mili-tary textbooks describing applications of geologypublished after World War II (Anon. 1949, 1976a)and a revised textbook on water supply (Anon.1976b) were even more explicit in their descriptionof geology as of prime importance in dealing withgroundwater.

In the German-speaking nations, the importanceof clean drinking water and good hygiene to soldierswas also recognized by the mid-19th century. At thestart of World War I, responsibility for the supply ofdrinking water to German troops was in the hands ofarmy physicians. Medical regulations introduced in1907 specified principles for such things as theexploitation of groundwater in river plains and theconstruction of driven wells (Willig & Hausler2012a). Whether or not army physicians weregiven any training in the geology of water supplyis yet to be established, but by late 1914 it wasthought necessary for geological advice to be pro-vided to support the consulting hygienic officerworking inland from the Belgian coast. Initially,geology teams were incorporated into the surveyingbranch of the German Army, but, as the war drew toa close, geologists were put under the control oftheir main customer, the engineer branch. Theteams included 126 ‘geological experts’, supportedby technical staff, and developed overall into anorganization making use of some 250 ‘geologists’.

A significant proportion of their work involvedguiding the provision of water supplies and the dis-posal of wastewater through the preparation ofspecialist reports, maps and manuals. The militarygeology service was disbanded at the end ofWorld War I but the experiences of the officers,many of whom obtained academic or geologicalsurvey appointments, was distilled into several text-books, which included sections and sometimeswhole chapters on military aspects of hydrogeology.These formed useful manuals to help train a newgeneration of military geologists in the build up toWorld War II.

A German military geological organization wasre-founded in 1937, and developed during WorldWar II largely by recruitment or conscription ofgeologists of doctoral status from university teach-ing staffs or geological survey departments (Willig& Hausler 2012b). On the outbreak of war, theGerman Army thus had immediate access to experi-enced staff, some of whom had served as militarygeologists in World War I. In order for the geol-ogists to learn from each other as the war pro-gressed, a series of conferences was held, fiveduring the quiet winter months of January andFebruary 1940 and a sixth, more substantialcourse, in December 1940. Notable amongst thepublications was a pocket guide for military geol-ogists, issued during the latter stages of thewar, which contained a chapter on water supply.Guidance on best practice was set out, includingsections on the construction of boreholes and wellsand the location of supplies in arid areas. There isno doubt that Germany began World War II withan ‘Army High Command’ that appreciated thevalue of geology and a group of trained personnel,including graduate hydrogeologists, capable ofmaking an immediate impact. The influence ofsenior geologists is apparent from the decision, inOctober 1939, to ban the use of dowsers in allparts of the German Army and encourage the useof geophysical survey equipment rather than a pen-dulum or hazel twig.

The USA, guided to some extent by Britishexperience, appointed two experienced geologiststo serve with the American Expeditionary Force inFrance soon after entering World War I in April1917, and a final increase in their number to 18was in progress when the war ended. Among thehydrogeologists was Captain O.E. Meinzer, headof the USGS Groundwater Division from 1912,who was en route to France when the war ended.Although a number of authors subsequentlyhighlighted the contribution of geologists to themilitary planning process, their message was com-pletely ignored by the superintendent of the USMilitary Academy at West Point, General DouglasMacArthur, who eliminated courses in geology




from the curriculum (Gellasch 2012). World War IIbrought a new approach, with the USGS and the USArmy Corps of Engineers establishing a joint pro-gramme to provide geological expertise via a Mili-tary Geology Unit. Civilian hydrogeologists fromthe USGS contributed to intelligence reports but,by early 1943, ten survey hydrogeologists hadbeen commissioned as army officers. Most servedin water supply battalions and some commandedwater supply companies. The USGS has continuedto support US armed forces, although hydrogeologycurrently forms a less prominent part of sectionstaff duties.

The different approaches to the provision andtraining of military hydrogeologists in the USA,Britain and Germany during the 20th centuryreflect the prevailing attitude towards hydrogeologyin the three countries. In the USA, the USGS had aDivision of Groundwater by 1908 with a staff of 80by the beginning of World War II (Mather 2012b).This interest in the geology of water supply was sup-ported by teaching and research in US universities.Similarly, in Germany, applied geology was taughtin universities, and after World War I, often by tea-chers who had returned to academic life after serviceas military hydrogeologists (Willig & Hausler2012b). In both countries there was a pool oftrained personnel, particularly in the lead-up toWorld War II, who could be called up to supportmilitary operations. In Britain this was not thecase. Little hydrogeology was taught in British uni-versities until 1965 (Mather 2004) and there wereonly three members of staff in the Water Depart-ment of the Geological Survey of Great Britain atthe beginning of World War II. These staff wereseconded from field mapping units on the basisthat hydrogeology was not a suitable career pathfor a Survey geologist (Mather 2012b). Thus, boththe Americans and Germans were able to rapidlydeploy trained geological staff with a backgroundin water supply when required, whereas the Britishrelied on able individuals who gained relevantexperience as their tour of duty progressed.

In past centuries, advances in military engineer-ing paralleled those in the civilian sector, and it isdifficult to characterize any research and develop-ment activities in the field of hydrogeology asspecifically military. Rather, military engineers con-tributed to the developing science and benefitedfrom it. Thus the British military engineer ThomasHyde Page (Mather 2012a) made significantadvances towards understanding the hydrogeologyof the eastern part of the London Basin, whichwere then followed up and developed by civiliangeologists and engineers. Until the late 18thcentury, the discipline of civil engineering had notfully diverged from that of military engineering(West & Rose 2005).

In the 19th century, one technique in particularwas used and made famous by British Army engin-eers. This was the Norton tube well (Fig. 4),invented in the USA but used by the British in theAbyssinian War of 1867/1868. It consisted of apointed, partly perforated iron tube that was driveninto the ground by raising and dropping a weight.These wells proved so useful in the campaign thatthe name ‘Abyssinian well’ was given to them bythe general public and they became an indispensableitem of equipment for the British Army, being usedsubsequently in South Africa and Egypt. In the late19th century they were installed in many parts ofBritain, particularly to supply breweries, by the civi-lian firm Le Grand and Sutcliff, who advertised asartesian well engineers (cf. Rose 2012b). DuringWorld War I they were widely used by both theBritish and German armies (Rose 2012a; Willig &Hausler 2012a) and subsequently by British consult-ants in developing countries, particularly in Africa(Beeby Thompson 1924).

In addition to tube wells, Robins & Rose (2009)have identified a number of other areas in whichtechnical developments, driven by military needs,have benefited the wider water supply industry.These include the introduction into Europe inWorld War I of mobile drilling rigs (from theUSA) and the Ashford filter (from India), the devel-opment in Europe during both World Wars of avariety of groundwater prospect maps, and theextended use of abstraction galleries, particularlyin coastal dunes and arid-region wadi bottoms.

Research and development in hydrogeologydirected at applications specific to the military, asdistinct from hydrogeological research applied tomilitary problems, has become significant only inthe second half of the 20th century, since the endof World War II. Published research has originatedmostly from the USA, but other countries areassumed to be carrying out similar work, keepingkey results confidential, as is typical for most mili-tary research. Four papers in this volume describestudies directly funded by the US military. Threeof these have been referenced in earlier sections ofthis review and show how the US Army haspursued research aimed at equipping soldiers withthe tools and knowledge to account for the impactof near-surface hydrology on mobility (Priddyet al. 2012), how computer simulation has beenused to explore the importance of hydrogeology inremote sensing for explosive threat detection(Howington et al. 2012), and how the Departmentof Defense has researched and developed tech-nologies for environmental cleanup from pastmilitary activities (Miller & Foran 2012). A moregeneral paper (Downer et al. 2012) discusses theneed for hydrological forecasts by the US Armyand the history of hydrological modelling and




model development undertaken to satisfy thatneed. The paper includes a description of theGridded Surface/Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis(GSSHATM) model, which has been developedover the last 20 years. This two-dimensional,physics-based model has been successfully appliedto assess a variety of problems in varied environ-ments in many parts of the world. Research and pro-ducts generated by the modelling programme arebeing disseminated widely to an international audi-ence and used by public and private entities forscientific and engineering analysis. This work rep-resents a good example of how work initiated andfunded to solve problems of direct military interestcan be successfully transferred to the civilian sector.

Groundwater as a potential

source of conflict

Groundwater has no respect for national boundaries,and these are crossed by many significant aquifers.Implications of ‘internationally shared’ or ‘trans-boundary’ aquifers were largely ignored until1997, when the International Association ofHydrogeologists, followed by the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO), established groups to promote theirstudy and the international cooperation needed for

their management (Puri & Aureli 2005). It wasrecognized that conflicts might arise over the man-agement of such aquifers, particularly if there wasa lack of reliable scientific information on such par-ameters as groundwater abstractions, potentiometriclevels, safe yields and water quality. Some obser-vers have gone so far as to suggest that futurewars might be fought over shared water, althoughso far the history of hydro-political relations world-wide has been overwhelmingly cooperative (Jarviset al. 2005).

The key features of transboundary aquifers inc-lude a natural subsurface path of groundwater flow,intersected by an international boundary, such thatwater transfers from one side of the boundary to theother (Puri 2001). In many cases the aquifer canreceive the majority of its recharge on one side,with the majority of its discharge occurring on theopposite side of the boundary. The subsurface flowsystem at the boundary might include both regionaland local components. In legal documents, drawnup to allocate the equitable sharing of transboundaryresources, the initial requirement must be agreementon the flow and movement of groundwater followedby its quantification. Conflicts can develop if socio-economic pressures have already resulted in exces-sive water abstraction on one side of the boundaryor relevant issues are not addressed because of insti-tutional weaknesses and/or political pressures.

Fig. 4. ‘Experiments with Norton’s patent tube-wells’, as used by the Royal Engineers to supply water to Britishtroops in Abyssinia: a demonstration in March 1868 near Thames Ditton on the edge of London, showing tube wellsof three sizes (1.25, 2.5 and 4.0 in [c. 32, 64 and 102 mm] in diameter) being driven some 14 ft (c. 4.27 m) into theground, one completed and pump fitted (foreground, right), and another as component parts (foreground, left). AnAmerican invention, credited as extensively used during the Civil War of 1861–1865, it was introduced into theUK and soon adopted for use by the Royal Engineers in 1867, its London patent being held by a Mr. J.L. Norton.From The Illustrated London News of 21 March 1868, pp. 272 and 280.




Since 2003, a UNESCO-led initiative on Inter-national Shared (transboundary) Aquifer ResourcesManagement (ISARM) has worked to produce aninventory of transboundary aquifers (Puri & Aureli2009). So far, 273 shared aquifers have been ident-ified, 68 on the American continent, 38 in Africa,65 in Eastern Europe, 90 in Western Europe and12 in Africa. Some of these aquifers cover largeareas, with the Guarani Aquifer System of SouthAmerica extending over an area of at least 1.2million km2 of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay andArgentina, and the Nubian Sandstone AquiferSystem, lying beneath the four North Africancountries of Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan, extend-ing over some 2 million km2. On a different scale,there are some 20 aquifers straddling the 3220 kmborder between Mexico and the USA, many ofwhich serve as the main source of water for therapidly increasing border population.

Of all the many transboundary aquifers, it is thatshared between the Palestinians and the Israelis thathas resulted in most tension. The Mountain Aquifer,lying beneath both the West Bank and Israel, is animportant water resource. Composed of three com-ponents, the Western Aquifer crops out and isrecharged in the semi-arid uplands of the WestBank, and groundwater flows west beneath Israelto discharge at springs near the Mediterraneancoast (Mansour et al. 2012). The key to equitableapportionment is the determination of the long-termaverage recharge to the basin, but conventional esti-mates are difficult to make because of the complexgeological structure and steeply sloping outcrop.Empirical formulae and process-based modelshave been used to constrain recharge to theWestern Aquifer Basin, and a range of estimates isemerging. However, no single value or range canyet be selected that is justifiable and defensible.This can be obtained only by gathering relevantdata (on rainfall, spring and wadi flows, and seaso-nal floods) to support future modelling work. Unfor-tunately lack of coordination and direction meanthat not all of these data are being collected.

Experience suggests that if tensions alreadyexist between countries these can be exacerbatedby the challenges posed by transboundary aquifers.However, the recently signed Guarani AquiferAgreement to regulate the sustainable use andprotection of one of the world’s largest ground-water reservoirs (Foster et al. 2006) shows how anintegrated approach can lead to a legal frameworkable to deliver effective transboundary aquifermanagement.

Conclusions

There are many ways in which groundwater and thescience of hydrogeology are of relevance to the

military. Traditionally, springs and wells provideda readily available source of water to castles andencampments, and in arid terrain the only source.If situated within fortifications, wells enabled thedefenders to survive an extended siege and holdup the advance of an enemy. The skills necessaryto dig wells were initially handed down throughthe generations by military engineers and it wasnot until the middle of the 19th century that thegeology of water supply was formally taught at mili-tary academies, at least in the UK. One techniqueembraced by the British Army was the Nortontube well, which was used to such good effect inthe Abyssinian War of 1868 that it was subsequentlyknown by the name ‘Abyssinian well’.

World War I served as a catalyst for the adoptionof new technologies, and both sides in the conflictpioneered the compilation of groundwater prospectmaps, a concept largely unknown in the civiliansector. Germany and her allies made most use ofhydrogeologists during the conflict, but at the endof the war both sides demobilized their geologists,and expertise had to be acquired anew whenWorld War II began in 1939. However, this wasmore straightforward for the Germans and Ameri-cans than the British, because in both thosecountries, hydrogeology was by then establishedas a subject in its own right, taught in universitiesand with employment available within geologicalsurveys. In contrast, hydrogeology was a fringeactivity in the UK, with few practitioners andmany water engineers often siting boreholes usingwater diviners rather than geologists. The latterapproach was reflected in British military textbookson water supply, which, as late as 1936, were stilladvising that the use of dowsers might save time!Dowsing was practised by a few rogue individualson both sides during the conflict, but with suchinitial official sanction only in the UK. Since thewar, geologists from the main combatants, nowallies, have worked on water supply problems inmost conflict zones. Much use has been made ofcontractors to drill boreholes in non-combatantareas or where in-house equipment has provedunsuitable for work in geological situationsbeyond those for which it was originally intended.

As well as a welcome source of water supply,groundwater can create problems for the militaryengineer. Ground made muddy following rainfallor from groundwater discharge can affect the mobi-lity of troops and vehicles. Examples from Britainshow how groundwater geomorphology influencedthe outcome of battles between the English andScots in the 16th and 18th centuries, but the prin-ciple is timeless. In the 20th century, potentialmobility problems led to trafficability studies inthe USA and temporary establishment of a ‘MudCommittee’ by the British towards the end of




World War II. Since then, the US Army in particularhas pursued research aimed at developing rapidmethods to assess the effect of weather, and sovarying soil moisture, on ‘going’. Such terrainanalysis is known to be of continuing importancein many modern armies, although the most recenttechnical data are usually clouded in secrecy.

Groundwater also influences the construction ofunderground facilities, and hydrogeological adviceis needed to predict water table fluctuations andthe distribution of swelling clays. During WorldWar I, both sides on the Western Front used under-ground tunnels to lay mines and excavated‘dugouts’ to shelter troops. British tunnelling atMessines became the most successful example ofmine warfare in history. In modern conflicts,mines are small devices often concealed justbelow the ground surface where, under certain con-ditions, they may be detected by remotely sensedimagery. The hydrogeological properties of soilsare important in interpreting these images and dis-tinguishing threats from false alarms, a topic ofcontinuing research.

The manufacture and testing of munitions andhazardous chemicals for use on the battlefield canresult in the contamination of groundwater andremedial action has often been necessary. Most pro-blems are similar to those characteristic of non-military sites, but some contaminates, such asRDX, are unique to the military sector.

Groundwater does not respect internationalboundaries, and 273 shared aquifers have beenidentified that cross such boundaries. Althoughpotentially a source of conflict, experience world-wide has been overwhelmingly positive, leading tosome significant management agreements. Acurrent exception is the Mountain Aquifer, whichlies beneath the West Bank and Israel and wheretension is likely to continue until accurate estimatesof long-term average recharge are available. Unfor-tunately, current lack of coordination and directionmean that not all the relevant data are being col-lected to enable resources to be allocated equitably.

Prior to World War II, it is difficult to distinguisha separate subject of military hydrogeology. Rather,military engineers, and the geologists recruited asneeded during times of conflict, applied existingtechniques to problems encountered on the battle-field. In some fields, such as the widespread use ofNorton tube wells and the preparation of ground-water prospect maps, significant advances weremade, but no specific subject of military hydrogeol-ogy developed. This situation has changed since1945 and, particularly in the USA, work has beendirected towards problems (such as mine detection,remediation of contaminated land and ground-water, and battlefield mobility) specific to themilitary. There are now individuals who can more

legitimately describe themselves as military hydro-geologists. As conflicts extend into the 21st century,demand for their services is likely to increase,in parallel with the development of sophisticatedGeographic Information System (GIS) technologylinked to developments in satellite and remotelysensed images, and process-based models.

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