Physiographic and climatic controls on regional groundwater dynamics
Journal article, 2020

The main goal of this study is to explore whether the ideas established by surface water hydrologists in the context of “PUB” (predictions in ungauged basins) can be useful in hydrogeology. The concrete question is whether it is possible to create predictive models for groundwater systems with no or few observations based on knowledge derived from similar groundwater systems which are well‐observed. To do so, this study analyses the relationship between temporal dynamics of groundwater levels and climatic and physiographic characteristics. The analysis is based on data from 341 wells in Southern Germany with ten‐year daily groundwater hydrographs. Observation wells are used in confined and unconfined sand and gravel aquifers from narrow mountainous valleys as well as more extensive lowland alluvial aquifers. Groundwater dynamics at each location are summarized with 46 indices describing features of groundwater hydrographs. Besides borehole log‐derived geologic information, local and regional morphologic characteristics as well as topography‐derived boundary and climatic descriptors were derived for each well. Regression relationships were established by mining the data for associations between dynamics and descriptors with forward stepwise regression at a confidence level >95%. The most important predictors are geology and boundary conditions and secondarily, climate, as well as some topographic features, such as regional convergence. The multiple regression models are in general agreement with process understanding linked to groundwater dynamics in unconfined aquifers. This systematic investigation suggests that statistical regionalization of groundwater dynamics in ungauged aquifers based on map‐derived physiographic and climatic controls may be feasible.

Groundwater hydrograph

Groundwater dynamics index

Southern Germany

Groundwater regionalization

Multiple regression

selective inference

Author

Ezra Haaf

University of Gothenburg

Markus Giese

University of Gothenburg

Benedikt Heudorfer

University of Freiburg

Kerstin Stahl

University of Freiburg

Barthel Roland

University of Gothenburg

Water Resources Research

0043-1397 (ISSN) 19447973 (eISSN)

Vol. 56 10 e2019WR026545

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Water Engineering

Ocean and River Engineering

Other Environmental Engineering

Roots

Basic sciences

DOI

10.1029/2019WR026545

More information

Latest update

3/17/2021