Integrated Hydrologic Modeling with Geographic Information Systems

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) for spatial hydrologic data analysis has provided many benefits for water resources permitting and design. This paper discusses a computer model, developed to aid phosphate mine— reclamation design, as an example of the means and real benefits to be derived by incorporating GIS into hydrologic modeling. The model integrates a commercial GIS, public‐domain surface‐water and ground‐water hydrologic models, and a specially written evapotranspiration code to be run on a microcomputer within a highly structured interface. The user community consists of state and local regulatory agencies, mining companies, and private consultants. The GIS provides an important spatial/analytical function, performing the time‐consuming georeferencing and spatial overlays (GIS modeling) to develop input data as well as providing a mechanism to link the surface‐water and ground‐water codes written with disparate spatial discretizations. This paper supports the premise that the incorporation of GIS into hydrologic modeling provides for an increased detail of evaluation, minimizes user subjectivity in parameter selection, and reduces costs of analysis due to significant time savings.