Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 14, 2025
12:44
Watershed Planning within a Quantitative Scenario Analysis Framework
Published on: July 24, 2016
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Development of a process-based modeling framework for harnessing hydrometeorological datasets to estimate groundwater
Fatemeh Saedi1, Mukesh Kumar1, T Prabhakar Clement1
1Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, The University of Alabama, Alabama, USA.
Journal of Environmental Management
|May 3, 2025
Summary
This study presents a simple water balance model to estimate annual groundwater recharge. The model found that approximately 21% of rainfall becomes groundwater recharge, with most water lost to evapotranspiration and runoff.
Area of Science:
- Hydrology
- Water Resource Management
- Environmental Science
Background:
- Sustainable freshwater management requires accurate groundwater recharge rate estimations.
- Existing modeling frameworks can be complex and require extensive calibration.
- A simplified, process-based approach is needed for accessible recharge assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a calibration-free, process-based model for estimating annual groundwater recharge rates.
- To apply this model to a large river basin in the Southeastern United States.
- To provide a straightforward method for calculating groundwater recharge using accessible data.
Main Methods:
- Utilized water balance calculations: Recharge = Precipitation - (Evapotranspiration + Runoff).
- Employed the SCS method for daily runoff computation at HUC-12 scale, gridded to 800m.
- Applied the Penman-Monteith model for daily evapotranspiration estimation at the grid scale.
Main Results:
- Annual groundwater recharge was estimated at approximately 21% of average annual rainfall for the study basin.
- Evapotranspiration accounted for about 55% of rainfall, while runoff represented 24%.
- Model results were compared with the USGS recharge product for validation.
Conclusions:
- The developed water balance approach offers a simple yet effective method for computing groundwater recharge.
- The model successfully applied to the Tombigbee-Black-Warrior River Basin, demonstrating its utility for large-scale assessments.
- This framework supports sustainable freshwater resource management by providing crucial recharge data.
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