Integrated Groundwater Resources Management: Spatially-Nested Modelling Approach for Water Cycle Simulation

Abstract

Groundwater resources is one of the key water resources mobilized to support water uses of modern societies. The growing competition among water uses and complexity of faced situations requests a holistic approach able to ensure efficient answer to demands and at the same time satisfied water security. The current demands for integrated groundwater resources management drive the groundwater modelling research to focus on exploring an effective approach to simulate the full water-cycle at catchment scale. Referencing the existing modelling approaches, this paper presents an innovative approach to setting up a spatially-nested modelling system combining fully-distributed deterministic models for catchment hydrology, surface hydraulic and groundwater. The application to the low Var valley locates in the French Rivera is presented in order to validate performance of the approach and reproducibility. Confirmed by the high-quality model outputs (less than 7% difference in average) and high-level users’ satisfaction, the spatially-nested modelling approach demonstrates obvious advantages in assessing complex water processes such as stream-aquifer exchanges. Moreover, the proposed approach can be also considered as one of the promising strategy for the implementation of deterministic modelling tools in decision support systems.