The Driftless Area, spanning Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, is entirely unlike the flat Midwestern landscape that surrounds it. Its unusually varied topography makes it ecologically and culturally unique, but also vulnerable to groundwater contamination.
Our goal with this project is to take a “snapshot in time” of as many springs as possible across the region, recording their flow rate, temperature, water quality, and overall health. We are looking for springs that seem to be doing especially well even under stresses like contamination or climate change, so that we can better understand what makes them so resilient, and help protect other springs across the region.
Broadly, I am a hydrogeologist: I try to understand how groundwater moves beneath the earth’s surface, and the relationships between groundwater, humans, and ecosystems. More specifically, I focus on two areas:
Karst systems: Unique landscapes where water has dissolved carbonate bedrock to create subterranean passageways, caverns, sinkholes, springs, and beautifully sculpted and fluted rock textures. Karst landscapes are particularly vulnerable to contamination, and it is difficult to predict how water will move through them, so they pose an exciting research challenge. I work in alpine karst systems in Europe, and closer to home, in the local karst systems of the Driftless Region of southeastern Minnesota.
Working landscapes: Landscapes that support human livelihoods, such as ranchlands or agricultural lands. These landscapes are often a patchwork of private, state, and federal ownership, but because water ignores ownership boundaries, successful conservation strategies consider the landscape as an ecologically, socially, and economically connected whole.
I use both fieldwork and numerical modeling to try to answer questions that will help guide responsible stewardship of these landscapes.
Textbook
An introduction to fundamental concepts in hydrogeology using analogies, illustrations and examples to demystify the math used to describe groundwater flow. https://doi.org/10.52305/FAAK1755
Aridland water harvesting study overview video (3 min):
Journal articles
Fandel, C., Ferré, T., Miville, F., Renard, P., and Goldscheider, N., 2023. Improving understanding of groundwater flow in an alpine karst system by reconstructing its geologic history using conduit network model ensembles: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, v. 27, p. 4205–4215, doi:10.5194/hess-27-4205-2023.
Fandel, C., Miville, F., Ferré, T.P.A., Goldscheider, N., Renard, P., 2022. The stochastic simulation of karst conduit network geometries using anisotropic fast marching, and its application to a geologically complex alpine karst system. Hydrogeology Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-022-02464-x
Tennevin, G., Emily, A., Mangan, C., Thaon, A.-L., Sollima, D., Chartier, A., Fandel, C., 2020. Structure et drainage profond de l’unité jurassique du Férion (Alpes-Maritimes, France) [Deep structure and drainage in the Férion jurassic unit, Maritime Alps, France]. Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Nice 17.
