Cross-Calibration of Two Independent Groundwater Balance Models and Evaluation of Unknown Terms: The Case of the Shallow Aquifer of BTavoliere di Puglia^ (South Italy)

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Abstract

Groundwater represents an essential water resource for human purposes, mainly inthose areas characterised by a scarcity of surface water and dry climate. Consequently, tools forassessing the groundwater balance are fundamental for its suitable management. The conventionalgroundwater balance equation, which considers all the natural and human-induced termsof the balance, such as rainfall, withdrawals, irrigation, etc., sometimes lacks of someimportant terms. One of the terms of the balance that is most difficult assess is the volumeof water exchanged with other neighbouring water bodies (subsurface inflow/outflow). In thiscase, the estimation must be considered as a poor approximation. In this paper, a novelmethodology is proposed that is capable of significantly increasing the accuracy of thegroundwater balance when subsurface inflows and outflows are unknown. The improvementis accomplished by comparing two corresponding time series of annual groundwater balancesassessed by means of different balance models. The first time series is evaluated by means ofthe conventional balance equation and the second one by directly estimating the groundwatervolumes by means of geostatistical methods. Both these models are supposed to lack specific,even though different, information. Their comparison through simple statistical tools allowsthem to be calibrated and to recover missing average information. A study case is presentedconsidering the inflow/outflow term and the specific yield as missing information for theconventional and the geostatistical approaches, respectively. The study area is the shallowporous aquifer of the Tavoliere di Puglia (South Italy).

Autore Pugliese

Tutti gli autori

  • G. Passarella; E. Barca; D. Sollitto; R. Masciale; D.E. Bruno

Titolo volume/Rivista

Water resources management

Anno di pubblicazione

2017

ISSN

0920-4741

ISBN

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Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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