Cokriging model for estimation of water table elevation

Abstract

In geological settings where the water table is a subdued replica of the ground surface, cokriging can be used to estimate the water table elevation at unsampled locations on the basis of values of water table elevation and ground surface elevation measured at wells and at points along flowing streams. The ground surface elevation at the estimation point must also be determined. In the proposed method, separate models are generated for the spatial variability of the water table and ground surface elevation and for the dependence between these variables. After the models have been validated, cokriging or minimum variance unbiased estimation is used to obtain the estimated water table elevations and their estimation variances. For the Pits and Trenches area near Oak Ridge National Laboratory, water table estimations along a linear section, both with and without the inclusion of ground surface elevation as a statistical predictor, illustrate the advantages of the cokriging model.