Affiliate Spotlight

Charlotte Garing
Assistant Professor
Department of Geology
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences 
Porous Media Flow Lab

Charlotte Garing is a hydrogeologist – an area of study that requires her to have a broad background in physics, chemistry and engineering. Specifically, she concentrates on the processes that control the movement of water through geologic formations and soils.  

“I really look at fundamental physics and chemistry. When you have anything that migrates through soil and rocks – usually water, but it could be gases or contaminants – that’s what I study,” she said. “My research is really to better understand processes that happen in soils and rocks, which impacts water flow and saturation. How does the structure of the soil and rocks impact water migration? How fast is water flowing through? Where does it get retained? All of these are important questions. They are important for everything.” 

Understanding the physical, chemical and biological mechanisms at play under the ground helps experts more reliably to predict fluid flow in different contexts. 

Garing’s research also involves geologic underground storage, including CO2 captured from large emitting point-sources, such as power plants, as a way to mitigate carbon emission to the atmosphere.

Through the River Basin Center, Garing and Geology Department colleagues Adam Milewski and Ervan Garrison work on the Georgia’s Flow Incentive Trust (GA FIT), an interdisciplinary project to balance water needs during drought in the Flint River Basin. Researchers in forestry, engineering and agriculture also work with GA FIT. 

South Georgia has abundant water resources, including the Flint River and the Floridan Aquifer, one of the world’s most productive, and the Clairborne Aquifer even further below the surface. But those resources are not limitless as drinking water, agriculture, industry and wildlife demand a share.  

“The purpose of GA FIT is so that farmers can switch from surface water to groundwater in times of drought,” Garing said. Four master’s students in geology have worked with Garing and Milewski to characterize the system of aquifers in the southwestern part of the state.  

Using well logs, cuttings analysis, surface geophysics and pumping tests, the geologists are helping to see how the aquifers are interconnected while other scientists on the team assess the water quality. The project involves more than 250 wells, many of them on-farm irrigation wells. 

“The EPD has a general model that they use to predict how much groundwater is sustainable. But the geological knowledge of deeper subsurface systems in Georgia is pretty low,” she said. 

GA FIT works with partners like the Georgia Water Planning and Policy Center at Albany State University and the Nature Conservancy to plan for drought and includes several projects to preserve and protect deep aquifer water sources. 

“Because of the pretty significant use of water for agriculture, we don’t want to be left with low flows in the Flint River during drought,” Garing said. A depleted Flint River not only would threaten protected species like freshwater mussels, it would damage the important tourism industry.  

At the same time, the Floridan aquifer is well connected to the surface, so pulling from that source affects the surface water. Below the Floridian is the Claiborne Aquifer, which provides water for drinking and irrigation in many communities. The interaction between the surface water and two aquifers is complex – which makes geologists useful to the team. 

After earning a Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Montpellier in France, Garing did postdoc work at Stanford University before coming to UGA in 2019 to serve as an Assistant Professor of Hydrogeology in the Department of Geology. 

The field is often overlooked, she said, even though geology is a wide discipline with good job prospects. Geology traditionally attracted mostly men who worked with fossil fuels, but geology touches on every aspect of people’s lives, Garing said. 

“A lot of the jobs of the 21st Century involve  geology,” she said. 

“Agriculture needs good soils, and soil is the result of weathering of rocks. That’s geology. 

“You need water resources. Where are the water resources? Ask a geologist. 

“People want energy, most of those resources are intertwined with geology.”  

There will be a huge demand for hydrogeologists in the future, Garing said, as a wave of retirements will leave jobs vacant.