Quantifying ground water recharge at multiple scales using PRMS and GIS

Management of ground water resources requires a method to calculate demonstrably accurate recharge rates at local to regional scales using readily available information bases. Many methods are available to calculate recharge, but most are unable to satisfy all these conditions. A distributed parameter model is shown to meet the stated needs. Such models are input intensive, however, so a procedure to define most inputs from GIS and hydrogeological sources is presented. It simplifies the PRMS calibration observed streamflow hydrographs by reducing degrees of freedom from dozens to four. For seven watersheds (60 to 500 km2), the GIS-aided calibrations have average errors of 5% on recharge and 2% on total streamflow, verifying the accuracy of the process. Recharge is also calculated for 63 local-scale subwatersheds (average size 37 km2). For the study area, calculated recharges average 11 cm/yr. Soil and rock conductivity, porosity, and depth to the water table are shown to be the physical properties which dominate the spatial variability of recharge. The model has been extended to uncalibrated watersheds where GIS and climatic information are known. It reproduces total annual discharge and recharge to within 9% and 10%, respectively, indicating the process can also be used to calculate recharge in ungauged watersheds. It has not been tested outside the study area, however.