GROUNDWATER MODELING: A REVIEW OF ITS ROLE AS A PRECURSOR FOR RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

 

Philip Burries

 

To meet increasing demand for water resources, management principals need to integrate groundwater and surface water systems and should utilize technological advances that have been made in this area.

Groundwater is known to be particularly vulnerable to changes in land use, over extraction and contamination and poses a unique management challenge, as impacts are often delayed and non-linear. Often the only real means of forecasting change in complex hydrogeological domains is by the use of numerical models. The expert application of these models particularly at an early stage in integrated water resource management can convey substancial benefits. If established correctly, a ground water model should be able to provide reliable, timely information and be versatile enough to expand tot the needs of a range of management issues. Limitations to the accuracy of the model will arise depending on the data availability however, there should always be additional benefitsincluding greater problem illumination and rationalization.

This paper outlines a framework for groundwater model development that should meet these requirements and also reviews some of the methodological difficulties that may be encountered. Model predictions can dramatically increase in terms of sophistication and precision but only when anthropogenic stressors may remain  undetermined, an analogue for their corresponding impact can often be established. The predictive ability of groundwater modeling is vast if it is considered as a tool that serves a quantitative and qualitative role.