Researchers from UC Davis and two Israeli universities show how farms can help recharge depleted groundwater while keeping crops healthy and water clean.
HELEN DAHLKE, UCD, Professor in Integrated Hydrologic Sciences
ALEX FURMAN, Technion, Professor of Environmental, Water & Agricultural Engineering
NOAM WEISBROD, Ben Gurion University, Professor of Hydrogeology & Arid Zones Research
Clockwise from top left: Elad Levintal in the field; Alex Furman in the field and at work; Furman with Noam Weisbrod; Elad with Kira Waldman.
Two Junior Research Scientists Trained
Two young Israeli scientists were jointly advised, as graduate students and post docs, by members of the collaborative team. Yonatan Ganot is now working as a Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. Elad Levintal is a Senior Lecturer at Ben Gurion University’s Sde Boker Campus.
$430,000 in Follow-On Funding
Grant of $310,000 from BARD US Israel Agricultural Research and Development Fund
Two $60,000 Vaadia-Bard Postdoctoral Fellowships
Eighteen Joint Publications
Joint publications in peer-reviewed journals are listed at the bottom of this post, and include collaborations among principal investigators as well as junior scientists trained as a result of this collaboration.
After receiving a Calisrael seed grant in 2017, hydrology researchers Helen Dahlke (UCD), Alex Furman (Technion) and Noam Weisbrod (Ben Gurion) established a long-running collaboration to explore how agricultural lands can replenish depleted groundwater while protecting crop health and groundwater quality.
The collaboration combined California’s experience with agricultural managed aquifer recharge (Ag-MAR), which uses agricultural fields and orchards to capture and infiltrate excess surface water, with Israel’s expertise in soil-aquifer treatment (SAT), where treated wastewater is infiltrated through soils to improve water quality and replenish groundwater supplies.
In 2021, the team proposed “Ag-SAT,” which combines flooding farm fields to refill aquifers with using treated wastewater as the water source. The soil acts as a natural filter, cleaning the water as it sinks. Because farms can do this work, communities may not need to set aside as much land for dedicated recharge basins.
The team also explores what happens beneath the surface when fields are flooded: how water moves through soil, how long saturation affects oxygen levels and crop health, and how nitrogen and other chemicals behave on their way down. Using field experiments, lab investigations, computer models, and underground sensors that track moisture, oxygen, and temperature, they have worked out how to time flooding and drying cycles so water soaks in efficiently without harming crops or groundwater quality. These insights provide information water managers can use to time flooding so recharge is both effective and safe.
Full Publication List
2025
Brandão Gontijo, J., Huang, L., Levintal, E., Prieto García, C., Erikson, C. B., Coyotl, A., Horwath, W. R., Dahlke, H. E., & Rodrigues, J. L. M. (2025). Depth-dependent metagenome-assembled genomes of agricultural soils under managed aquifer recharge. Scientific Data, 12, 858.
Cui, W., Zhou, T., Levintal, E., García, C. P., Kisekka, I., & Dahlke, H. E. (2025). Modeling the impact of agricultural managed aquifer recharge (Ag-MAR) on soil water and nitrogen dynamics of the growing season. Agricultural Water Management, 317, 109623.
Nguyen, T. T., Altman, A., Huang, L., Rodrigues, J. L. M., Dahlke, H. E., Kamennaya, N. A., & Levintal, E. (2025). A portable low-cost incubation chamber for real-time characterization of soil respiration. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 89(1), e20800.
Turkeltaub, T., Prieto García, C., Dahlke, H. E., & Levintal, E. (2025). Predictability of redox potential and oxygen status in managed aquifer recharge sites based on sensor data and regression techniques. Journal of Hydrology, 133486.
Zhou, T., Brunetti, G., Ruud, N., Šimůnek, J., Cui, W., Liao, A., Nasta, P., Gao, J., Levintal, E., García, C. P., & Dahlke, H. E. (2025). Simulation of pesticide transport in 70-m-thick soil profiles in response to large water applications. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 137517.
2024
Bulusu, S., Prieto García, C., Dahlke, H. E., & Levintal, E. (2024). An open-source, low-cost system for continuous monitoring of low nitrate concentrations in soil and open water. Biogeosciences, 21(12), 3007–3013.
Murphy, N. P., Furman, A., Moshe, S.-B., & Dahlke, H. E. (2024). Comparison of reactive transport and non-equilibrium modeling approaches for the estimation of nitrate leaching under large water application events. Journal of Hydrology, 628, 130583.
Zhou, T., Ruud, N., Šimůnek, J., Brunetti, G., Levintal, E., García, C. P., & Dahlke, H. E. (2024). The impact of agricultural managed aquifer recharge on the fate and transport of pesticides in the unsaturated zone. Water Research, 122442.
2023
Huang, L., Levintal, E., Erikson, C. B., Coyotl, A., Horwath, W. R., Dahlke, H. E., & Rodrigues, J. L. M. (2023). Molecular and dual-isotopic profiling of the microbial controls on nitrogen leaching in agricultural soils under managed aquifer recharge. Environmental Science & Technology, 57, 11084–11095.
Levintal, E., Huang, L., García, C. P., Coyotl, A., Fidelibus, M. W., Horwath, W. R., Rodrigues, J. L. M., & Dahlke, H. E. (2023). Nitrogen fate during agricultural managed aquifer recharge: Linking plant response, hydrologic, and geochemical processes. Science of the Total Environment, 864, 161206.
Levintal, E., Kniffin, M. L., Ganot, Y., Marwaha, N., Murphy, N. P., & Dahlke, H. E. (2023). Agricultural managed aquifer recharge (Ag-MAR)—a method for sustainable groundwater management: A review. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 53(3), 291–314.
Zhou, T., Levintal, E., Brunetti, G., Jordan, S., Harter, T., Kisekka, I., Šimůnek, J., & Dahlke, H. E. (2023). Estimating the impact of vadose zone heterogeneity on agricultural managed aquifer recharge: A combined experimental and modeling study. Water Research, 247, 120781.
2022
Levintal, E., Ganot, Y., Taylor, G., Freer-Smith, P., Suvočarev, K., & Dahlke, H. E. (2022). An underground, wireless, open-source, low-cost system for monitoring oxygen, temperature, and soil moisture. SOIL, 8(1), 85–97.
2021
Ganot, Y., & Dahlke, H. E. (2021). Natural and forced soil aeration during agricultural managed aquifer recharge. Vadose Zone Journal, 20(3), e20128.
Ganot, Y., & Dahlke, H. E. (2021). A model for estimating Ag-MAR flooding duration based on crop tolerance, root depth, and soil texture data. Agricultural Water Management, 255, 107031.
Grinshpan, M., Furman, A., Dahlke, H. E., Raveh, E., & Weisbrod, N. (2021). From managed aquifer recharge to soil aquifer treatment on agricultural soils: Concepts and challenges. Agricultural Water Management, 255, 106991.
Levintal, E., Suvočarev, K., Taylor, G., & Dahlke, H. E. (2021). Embrace open-source sensors for local climate studies. Nature, 599(7883), 32.
Marwaha, N., Kourakos, G., Levintal, E., & Dahlke, H. E. (2021). Identifying agricultural managed aquifer recharge locations to benefit drinking water supply in rural communities. Water Resources Research, 57(3), e2020WR028811.