Hydrologic model of the Modesto Region, California, 1960-2004

Phillips, Steven P.; Rewis, Diane L.; Traum, Jonathan A.

doi:10.3133/sir20155045

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…To this end, the BCM has been successfully applied to reliably estimate recharge and runoff in many parts of the world, for example, in California and Western United States [12,26,[28][29][30]. The recharge and runoff components have also been used as boundary conditions for numerous groundwater flow models and software [31][32][33][34][35][36]. In addition, the model is used for a variety of applications, including the evaluation of the effects of urbanization, wildfire, and forest management on hydrology [37,38]; the evaluation of the effects of soil management on recharge, climatic water deficit, and forage production [39,40]; and the modeling of future climate projections to evaluate water availability [27,41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recharge Estimation Approach in a Data-Scarce Semi-Arid Region, Northern Ethiopian Rift Valley

Mekonen,

Boyce,

Mohammed

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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Sustainable management of groundwater resources highly relies on the accurate estimation of recharge. However, accurate recharge estimation is a challenge, especially in data-scarce regions, as the existing models are data-intensive and require extensive parameterization. This study developed a process-based hydrologic model combining local and remotely sensed data for characterizing recharge in data-limited regions using a Basin Characterization Model (BCM). This study was conducted in Raya and Kobo Valleys, a semi-arid region in Northern Ethiopia, considering both the structural basin and the surrounding mountainous recharge areas. Climatic Research Unit monthly datasets for 1991 to 2020 and WaPOR actual evapotranspiration data were used. The model results show that the average annual recharge and surface runoff from 1991 to 2020 were 73 mm and 167 mm, respectively, with a substantial portion contributed along the front of the mountainous parts of the study area. The mountainous recharge occurred along and above the valleys as mountain-block and mountain-front recharge. The long-term estimates of the monthly recharge time series indicated that the water balance components follow the temporal pattern of rainfall amount. However, the relation of recharge to precipitation was nonlinearly related, showing the episodic nature of recharge in semi-arid regions. This study informed the spatial and temporal distribution of recharge and runoff hydrologic variables at fine spatial scales for each grid cell, allowing results to be summarized for various planning units, including farmlands. One third of the precipitation in the drainage basin becomes recharge and runoff, while the remaining is lost through evapotranspiration. The current study’s findings are vital for developing plans for sustainable management of water resources in semi-arid regions. Also, monthly groundwater withdrawals for agriculture should be regulated in relation to spatial and temporal recharge patterns. We conclude that combining scarce local data with global datasets and tools is a useful approach for estimating recharge to manage groundwater resources in data-scarce regions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recharge Estimation Approach in a Data-Scarce Semi-Arid Region, Northern Ethiopian Rift Valley

Mekonen,

Boyce,

Mohammed

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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“…The Corcoran Clay, a semi-permeable barrier, is a key hydrogeological feature that limits vertical groundwater flow below the base of this shallower portion of the aquifer system on which this paper focuses. In the study area, the top of the Corcoran Clay is between about 26 and 79 m below land surface (thickness of the unconfined to semi-confined aquifer overlying the Corcoran Clay), and the unit has a maximum thickness of about 58 m. A semi-confined aquifer exists below the Corcoran Clay layer in large parts of the San Joaquin Valley (Phillips et al 2015).…”

Section: Study Area Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The exception is the northeastern boundary, where a no-flow boundary represents the contact between the alluvial aquifer system and the Sierra Nevada foothill bedrock complex. For the purpose of this study, the Phillips et al (2015) model was used and converted to MODFLOW-2005 to be compatible with the MT3D platform for transport modeling (Bastani and Harter 2019). The same flow and transport model was used by Bastani and Harter to investigate the feasibility and longterm impacts of applying agricultural best management practices at the nitrate-contaminated source area of a pumping supply well to increase the quality of the drinking water at the well and the ambient groundwater.…”

Section: Study Area Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Failure to preserve clean groundwater is of growing concern due to the important role of groundwater as a source of drinking water worldwide. Nitrate is among the most common pollutants, especially in regions with significant agricultural activities; these are regions that are also among the most likely to rely on domestic wells for drinking water (Johnson and Belitz 2017;Ransom et al 2017). High levels of nitrate in groundwater degrades the quality of drinking water in municipal-supply and domestic wells and creates health issues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of upscaling temporal resolution of groundwater flow and transport boundary conditions on the performance of nitrate-transport models at the regional management scale

Bastani

Harter

2020

Hydrogeol J

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Managed aquifer recharge and changes in crop type or nutrient management on agricultural lands are promising approaches to address groundwater quality degradation by nitrate. Tools to assess nonpoint-source contaminant transport are needed to better understand the interaction between agricultural management practices and long-term nitrate dynamics in groundwater basins. This study investigates the impact of time-resolution upscaling of groundwater flow stresses (i.e., recharge, pumping, and evapotranspiration rates) on the long-term prediction of nitrate transport at the regional scale. A three-dimensional, monthly transient flow and nitrate-transport model using MODFLOW and MT3D is applied as the reference simulation. The reference model results are compared to temporally upscaled models with (1) upscaled annual-averaged flow and transport stresses and (2) steady-state flow stresses, across different management scenarios. Models with annual-averaged flow and nitrate-loading stresses were found to be the best alternative to the reference model. However, employing a steady-state flow field to parameterize transient transport models, using a time series of spatially variable annual total contaminant loading, provides a useful alternative to predict the trend and variability of nitrate-concentration breakthrough curves at wells across the regional scale and to differentiate the effects of various agricultural management scenarios, if the history of the source contaminant mass is known. The difference between concentrations resulting from steady-state-flow versus transient-flow models is less than 2 mgN/L for nearly 75% of shallow groundwater cells in the model. However, the steady-state-flow-model-based transport simulation does not capture short-term oscillations of nitrate concentrations in pumping wells at the local scale.

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“…This paper contributes to the small but increasing collection of integrated hydrologic models developed to support management of irrigated agricultural groundwater basins with groundwater-dependent ecosystems in interconnected streams (e.g., Faunt et al, 2009;Brush & Dogrul, 2013;Phillips et al, 2015;Hanson et al, 2018). Specifically, this paper investigates two related questions: What is the relative importance of and uncertainty about a diversity of parameters across the physical submodels in these systems?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity Analysis and Calibration of an Integrated Hydrologic Model in an Irrigated Agricultural Basin With a Groundwater‐Dependent Ecosystem

Tolley

Foglia

Harter

2019

Water Resources Research

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While sensitivity analysis and calibration are common practice in integrated hydrologic modeling, little work has been done to understand how the design of the sensitivity analysis and calibration affects the simulation outcome in these often highly nonlinear models. This is especially true for irrigated agricultural basins with a strong connection between land use, groundwater, and surface water. Using a range rather than a single set of initial parameter values, multiple sensitivity analyses, calibrations, and linearity tests were performed using UCODE_2014 on the Scott Valley Integrated Hydrologic Model. Calibration results show that parameters related to crop demand and applied irrigation water are most sensitive. Influence statistics show that low streamflow observations provide the most information during model calibration, indicating preference should be given to these observations during model development, sensitivity analysis, and calibration. Importantly, due to the nonlinearity of the integrated model, significant differences are found in results when initial parameter values are sampled from within their respective expected ranges. Estimates for some parameters varied up to an order of magnitude between calibrations, while all produced similar final objective function values, groundwater elevations, and stream flow. Confidence intervals for individual sensitivity analyses and calibration runs only spanned a fraction of the ensemble estimated parameter range across multiple runs. Our work suggests that a calibration design with multiple sensitivity analyses and calibrations of integrated hydrologic models, each using one of several widely varying sets of initial values, provides a frugal approach to identify parameters across the global parameter space.

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Hydrologic model of the Modesto Region, California, 1960-2004

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

Recharge Estimation Approach in a Data-Scarce Semi-Arid Region, Northern Ethiopian Rift Valley

Recharge Estimation Approach in a Data-Scarce Semi-Arid Region, Northern Ethiopian Rift Valley

Effects of upscaling temporal resolution of groundwater flow and transport boundary conditions on the performance of nitrate-transport models at the regional management scale

Sensitivity Analysis and Calibration of an Integrated Hydrologic Model in an Irrigated Agricultural Basin With a Groundwater‐Dependent Ecosystem

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