The range fraction: an applied method to characterize regional groundwater responses to climate inputs

An important component of ongoing water-resource investigations in the eastern Great Basin, USA, has been to ascertain the impact of future predicted climate change on groundwater availability. As a first step in that analysis, it was hypothesized that potentiometric fluctuations at certain wells would reflect annual-scale precipitation variation. Potentiometric behavior at a well depends on local hydrologic conditions, well construction, and human activities, in addition to natural recharge and regional water levels. Moreover, measurement data are limited for many wells. After preliminarily screening, a large body of well and climate station data, short-term potentiometric responses to annual-scale climate inputs, were identified at 18 wells using a simple visualization methodology developed during the study. For water levels displaying multi-annual trends, the signals were measured as deviations from a linear trendline. Groundwater responses lagged precipitation signals by less than 1 year to as much as 3 years, with most wells showing at most a 1- to 2-year delay. Response amplitude was variable and strongly depended on the hydrologic setting of each well.