Spatial Calibration of Vertical Hydraulic Conductivity below an Estuary
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 10
Abstract
The finite-difference model MODFLOW was used to model the flow of meteoric groundwater discharge (MGWD) into the Indian River Lagoon (IRL). The model was calibrated by four methods: (1) estimation of the root-mean-squared error (RMSE); (2) estimation of the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) index; (3) testing the null hypothesis by the two-sided test; and (4) visual comparisons. The statistics for the first three methods were obtained by comparing model-predicted and measured freshwater hydraulic head nodal values at 14 measurement points. Visual comparisons were made by comparing model-predicted and measured freshwater hydraulic head equipotential lines below the entire IRL over a domain approximately 2 km wide. Model validation confirmed that calibration by visual comparison was very accurate. The annual MGWD values obtained by the statistical calibration techniques were compared with the visual calibration results. Acceptable calibration with RMSE values ranging from 0.18–0.31 m underpredicted or overpredicted the annual MGWD by 28–213%. The annual MGWD values were off by 105% even when the two-sided test did not reject the null hypothesis. Acceptable calibration by the NSE statistic yielded excellent results at one transect but underestimated the MGWD by 39% at the other transect. Negative NSE index values always correlated with poor calibrations, although positive values did not always correlate with good calibration. Sensitivity analyses showed that the vertical hydraulic conductivity, , was the most important factor governing MGWD into the IRL because it was orders of magnitude smaller than the lateral hydraulic conductivity. The predominant value was , but in some regions was only , indicating that clogging can become much more significant near estuarine beds compared to river beds, perhaps due to negligible currents near estuarine beds. Results also showed that use of a single anisotropy ratio value to represent the entire domain could lead to significant errors.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Anderman, E. R., Hill, M. C., and Poeter, E. P. (1996). “Two-dimensional advective transport in ground-water flow parameter estimation.” Ground Water, 34(6), 1001–1009.
Anderson, M. P., and Woessner, W. W. (1992). Applied groundwater modeling: Simulation of flow and advective transport, Academic, San Diego.
Bartolino, J., and Niswonger, R. G. (1999). “Numerical simulation of vertical ground-water temperature profiles, central New Mexico.” Water-Resources Investigations Rep. No. 99-4212, USGS, Washington, DC.
Battin, T. J., and Sengschmitt, D. (1999). “Linking sediment biofilms, hydrodynamics, and river bed clogging: Evidence from a larger river.” Microb. Ecol., 37(3), 185–196.
Beckers, J., and Frind, E. O. (2001). “Simulating groundwater flow and runoff for the Oro Moraine aquifer system: Part II, automated calibration and mass balance calculations.” J. Hydrol. (Amsterdam), 243(1–2), 73–90.
Butler, J. J., Jr., Dietrich, P., Witting, V., and Christy, T. (2007). “Characterizing hydraulic conductivity with the direct-push permeameter.” Ground Water, 45(4), 409–419.
Chen, X. (2004). “Streambed hydraulic conductivity for rivers in south-central Nebraska.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 40(3), 561–573.
Fleckenstein, J. H., Niswonger, R. G., and Fogg, G. E. (2006). “River-aquifer interactions, geologic heterogeneity, and low-flow management.” Ground Water, 44(6), 837–852.
Franke, R., and Nielson, G. (1980). “Smooth interpolation of large sets of scattered data.” Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng., 15(11), 1691–1704.
Freeze, A. R., and Cherry, J. A. (1979). Groundwater, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Genereux, D., and Bandopadhyay, I. (2001). “Numerical investigation of lake bed seepage patterns: Effects of porous medium and lake properties.” J. Hydrol. (Amsterdam), 241(3–4), 286–303.
Harbaugh, A. W., Banta, E. R., Hill, M. C., and McDonald, M. G. (2000). “MODFLOW-2000, the U.S. Geological Survey modular ground-water model—User guide to modularization concepts and the ground-water flow processes.” Open-File Rep. 00-92, USGS, Washington, DC, 121.
Hazen, A. (1911). “Discussion: Dams on sand foundations.” Trans. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 73, 199.
Illman, W. A., Craig, A. J., and Liu, X. (2008). “Practical issues in imaging hydraulic conductivity through hydraulic tomography.” Ground Water, 46(1), 120–132.
Jain, S. K., and Sudheer, K. P. (2008). “Fitting of hydrologic models: A close look at the Nash-Sutcliffe index.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 13(10), 981–986.
Keating, E. H., and Bahr, J. M. (1998). “Using reactive solutes to constrain groundwater flow models at a site in northern Wisconsin.” Water Resour. Res., 34(12), 3561–3571.
Kollet, S. J., and Zlotnik, V. A. (2003). “Stream depletion predictions using pumping test data from a heterogeneous stream-aquifer system (a case study from the Great Plains, USA).” J. Hydrol. (Amsterdam), 281(2), 96–114.
Langevin, D. C. (2003). “Simulation of submarine ground water discharge to a marine estuary: Biscayne Bay, Florida.” Ground Water, 41(6), 758–771.
Lapin, L. L. (1983). Probability and statistics for modern engineering, Brooks/Cole Engineering Division, Monterey, CA.
Loaiciga, H. A., William, W. G., Hon, M., and Ortega-Guerrero, M. A. (2006). “Probability density functions in the analysis of hydraulic conductivity data.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 11(5), 442–450.
Lusczynski, N. J. (1961). “Head and flow of groundwater of variable density.” J. Geophys. Res., 66(12), 4247–4256.
McCuen, R. H., Knight, Z., and Cutter, A. G. (2006). “Evaluation of the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency index.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 11(6), 597–602.
Motz, L. H., and Sedighi, A. (2009). “Representing the coastal boundary condition in regional groundwater flow models.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 14(8), 821–831.
Neter, J., and Wasserman, W. (1973). Applied linear statistical models, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Homewood, IL, 12.
Oldenborger, G. A., Schincariol, R. A., and Mansinha, L. (2003). “Radar determination of the spatial structure of hydraulic conductivity.” Ground Water, 41(1), 24–32.
Pandit, A., El-Khazen, C. C., and Sivaramapillai, S. P. (1991). “Estimation of hydraulic conductivity values in a coastal aquifer.” Ground Water, 29(2), 175–180.
Pandit, A., Heck, H. H., and Ali, N. (2009). “Cross-sectional groundwater modeling in the Indian River Lagoon.” Final Rep. Prepared for Water Resources Dept., St. Johns River Water Management District, Florida, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, 277.
Patriarche, D., Castro, M. C., and Goovaerts, P. (2005). “Estimating regional hydraulic conductivity fields—A comparative study of geostatistical methods.” Math. Geol., 37(6), 587–613.
Sahoo, G. B., Ray, C., and De Carlo, E. H. (2006). “Calibration and validation of a physically distributed hydrological model, MIKE SHE, to predict stream flow at high frequency in a flashy mountainous Hawaii stream.” J. Hydrol. (Amsterdam), 327(1–2), 94–109.
Sophocleous, M., Koussis, A., Martin, J. L., and Perkins, S. P. (1995). “Evaluation of simplified stream-aquifer depletion models for water rights administration.” Ground Water, 33(4), 579–588.
Stoertz, M. W., and Bradbury, K. R. (1989). “Mapping recharge areas using a ground water flow model: A case study.” Ground Water, 27(2), 220–228.
Todd, D. K. (1976). Groundwater hydrology, Wiley, New York.
Trefry, J. H., et al. (1990). “Design and operation of a muck sediment survey.” Final Rep. Prepared for St. Johns River Water Management District, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL.
Trefry, J. H., Windsor, J. G., and Trocine, R. P. (2008). “Toxic substances in the Indian River Lagoon: Results from the 2006/07 (TOX 2) survey.” Final Rep. Prepared for St. Johns River Water Management District for Contract SJ47613, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL.
Watson, D. F., and Philip, P. G. (1985). “A refinement of inverse distance weighted interpolation.” Geo-Processing, 2(4), 315–327.
Woessner, W. W. (2000). “Stream and fluvial plain ground water interactions: Rescaling hydrogeologic thought.” Ground Water, 38(3), 423–429.
Wojnar, A. J., Levy, J., Mutiti, S., and McPeek, R. (2007). “Comparing methods to investigate riverbed hydraulic conductivity at several well fields along the Great Miami River, southwest Ohio.” Proc., Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO.
Wroblicky, G. J., Campana, M. E., Valett, H. M., and Dahm, C. N. (1998). “Seasonal variation in surface-subsurface water exchange and lateral hypothetic area of two stream-aquifer systems.” Water Resour. Res., 34(3), 317–328.
Yager, R. M. (1998). “Detecting influential observation in nonlinear regression modeling of groundwater flow.” Water Resour. Res., 34(7), 1623–1633.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16 • Issue 10 • October 2011
Pages: 763 - 771
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 11, 2010
Accepted: Dec 29, 2010
Published online: Sep 15, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.