Keywords

groundwater, aquifer storage, data imputation, time series, water resources management, sustainability

Abstract

Decision makers need an accurate understanding of aquifer storage trends to effectively manage groundwater resources. Groundwater is difficult to monitor and quantify since the data collected from monitoring wells are often available only at irregular and infrequent intervals. We present an open-source web application (app) to visualize groundwater data over time and automatically calculate changes in aquifer storage volume to help managers assess aquifer sustainability. This app uses a novel multi-linear regression (MLR) algorithm to impute missing data for infrequently sampled wells, using correlated data from other wells in the same aquifer. The app uses this MLR-imputed data to spatially interpolate water levels throughout an aquifer at user-specified time steps using GSLIB Kriging code. Based on our tests of unconfined aquifer systems, the imputed data increased the accuracy of the spatial interpolation over standard methods and resulted in estimates of aquifer storage change comparable to those of detailed USGS studies.

Original Publication Citation

Evans, S.W.; Jones, N.L.; Williams, G.P.; Ames, D.P.; Nelson, E.J. (2020). Groundwater Level Mapping Tool: An open source web application for assessing groundwater sustainability.Environmental Modeling and Software, Vol 131, September 2020.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2020-07-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/7074

Publisher

Environmental Modelling & Software

Language

English

College

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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