Thermal influences on groundwater in urban environments - A multivariate statistical analysis of the subsurface heat island effect in Munich

Abstract

Shallow aquifers beneath cities are highly influenced by anthropogenic heat sources, resulting in the formation of extensive subsurface urban heat islands. In addition to anthropogenic factors, natural factors also influence the subsurface temperature. However, the effect of individual factors is difficult to capture due to high temporal dynamics in urban environments. Particularly in the case of shallow aquifers, seasonal temperature fluctuations often override the influence of existing heat sources or sinks. For the city of Munich, we identify the dominant anthropogenic and natural influences on groundwater temperature and analyse how the influences change with increasing depth in the subsurface. For this purpose, we use depth temperature profiles from 752 selected groundwater monitoring wells. Since the measurements were taken at different times, we developed a statistical approach to compensate for the different seasonal temperature influences using passive heat tracing. Further, we propose an indicator to spatially assess the thermal stress on the aquifer. A multiple regression analysis of four natural and nine anthropogenic factors identified surface sealing as the strongest and the district heating grid as a weak but significant warming influence. The natural factors, aquifer thickness, depth-to-water and Darcy velocity show a significant cooling influence on the groundwater temperature. In addition, we show that local drivers, like thermal groundwater uses, surface waters and underground structures do not significantly contribute to the city-wide temperature distribution. The subsequent depth-dependent analysis revealed that the influence of aquifer thickness and depth-to-water increases with depth, whereas the influence of Darcy velocity decreases, and surface sealing and the heating grid remain relatively constant. In conclusion, this study shows that the most critical factor for the mitigation of future groundwater warming in cities is to minimize further sealing of the ground, to restore the permeability of heavily sealed areas and to retain open landscapes.

Keywords: Groundwater temperature; Passive heat tracing; Temperature time series; Temperature-depth profile; Urban heat island.