Water resources management is now recognized as a multidisciplinary task that has to be performed in an integrated way, within the natural boundaries of the hydrological basin or of the aquifers. Policy makers and water managers express a need to have tools able at this regional scale to help in the management of the water resources. Until now, few methodologies and tools were available to assess and model the fate of diffuse contaminants in groundwater at the regional scale. In this context, the objective of this research was to develop a pragmatic tool to assess and to model groundwater flow and solute transport at the regional scale. A general methodology including the acquisition and the management of data and a new flexible numerical approach was developed. This numerical approach called Hybrid Finite Element Mixing Cell (HFEMC) was implemented in the SUFT3D simulator developed by the Hydrogeology Group of the University of Liège. A first application of this methodology was performed on the Geer basin. The chalk aquifer of the Geer basin is an important resource of groundwater for the city of Liège and its suburbs. The quality of this groundwater resource is threatened by diffuse nitrate contamination mostly resulting from agricultural practices. New field investigations were performed in the basin to better understand the spatial distribution of the nitrate contamination. Samples were taken for environmental tracers (tritium, CFCs and SF6) analysis. The spatial distribution of environmental tracers concentrations is in concordance with the spatial distribution of nitrates. This allows proposing a coherent interpretative schema of the groundwater flow and solute transport at the regional scale. These new data and the results of a statistical nitrate trend analysis were used to calibrate the groundwater model developed with the HFEMC approach. This groundwater flow and solute transport model was used to forecast the evolution of nitrate concentrations in groundwater under a realistic scenario of nitrate input for the period 2008-2058. According to the modelling results, upward nitrate trends observed in the basin will not be reversed for 2015 as prescribed by the EU Water Framework Directive. The regional scale groundwater solute transport model was subsequently used to compute nitrate concentrations in groundwater under different scenarios of nitrate input to feed a socio-economic analysis performed by BRGM. These computed concentrations were used to assess the benefit, for the users, linked to the reduction of contamination resulting from the changes in nitrate input. These benefits were compared to the costs associated to the implementation of the considered agri-environmental schemes that allow reducing the nitrate input to groundwater.

Estimating the impacts of climate change on groundwater represents one of the most difficult challenges faced by water resources specialists. One difficulty is that simplifying the representation of the hydrological system, or using too simple climate change scenarios often leads to discrepancies in projections. Additionally, these projections are affected by uncertainties from various sources, and these uncertainties are not evaluated in previous studies. In this context, the objective of this study is to provide an improved methodology for the estimation of climate change impact on groundwater reserves, including the evaluation of uncertainties. This methodology is applied to the case of the Geer basin catchment (480 km²) in Belgium. A physically-based surface-subsurface flow model has been developed for the Geer basin with the finite element model HydroGeoSphere. The simultaneous solution of surface and subsurface flow equations in HydroGeoSphere, as well as the internal calculation of the actual evapotranspiration as a function of the soil moisture at each node of the defined evaporative zone, improve the representation and calibration of interdependent processes like recharge, which is crucial in the context of climate change. Fully-integrated surface-subsurface flow models have recently gained attention, but have not been used in the context of climate change impact studies. This surface-subsurface flow model is combined with advanced climate change scenarios for the Geer basin. Climate change simulations were obtained from six regional climate model (RCM) scenarios assuming the SRES A2 greenhouse gases emission (medium-high) scenario. These RCM scenarios were statistically downscaled using two different methods: the 'Quantile Mapping Biased Correction' technique and a 'Weather Generator' technique. Both of them are part of the most advanced downscaling techniques. They are able to apply corrections not only to the mean of climatic variables, but also across the statistical distributions of these variables. This is important as these distributions are expected to change in the future, with more violent rainfall events, separated by longer dry periods. The 'quantile mapping bias-correction' technique generate climate change time series representative of a stationary climate for the periods 2011-2040, 2041-2070 and 2071-2100. The 'CRU' weather generator is used to generate a large number of equiprobable scenarios simulating full transient climate change between 2010 and 2085. All these scenarios are applied as input of the Geer basin model. The uncertainty is evaluated from different possible sources. Using a multi-model ensemble of RCMs and GCMs enables to evaluate the uncertainty linked to climatic models. The application of a large number of equiprobable climate change scenarios, generated with the 'weather generator', as input of the hydrological model allows assessing the uncertainty linked to the natural variability of the weather. Finally, the uncertainty linked to the calibration of the hydrological model is evaluated using the computer code 'UCODE_2005'. The climate change scenarios for the Geer basin model predict hotter and drier summers and warmer and wetter winters. Considering the results of this study, it is very likely that groundwater levels and surface flow rates in the Geer basin will decrease. This is of concern because it also means that groundwater quantities available for abstraction will also decrease. However, this study also shows that the uncertainty surrounding these projections is relatively large and that it remains difficult to state on the intensity of the decrease.