Lepini Mountains Carbonatic Ridge: try of springs recharge areas verification and water exchange quantification with Pontina Plain by use of a numerical model (Central Italy)

Abstract

The study area of this work is represented by the Lepini Mountains carbonatic ridge and by the Pontina Plain foothills area, on which in the past, within quantitative hydrogeological characterizations, models were developed for calculating the groundwater flow, but only referred to the ridge. The most recent studies (Teoli, 2012) have done their best, instead, to represent the underground water exchanges between the ridge and the Pontina Plain foothill area. The new model (developed using computer code MODFLOW 2005) has been implemented to simulate steady-state underground flow using equivalent porous media approach even for the ridge; attention has been particularly directed to the proper tectonic ridge schematic, which the authors had previously defined, together with others (Alimonti et al., 2010), on detailed structural-geological survey basis, integrated by hydrogeological analysis. So, it’s been possible to determine partitioning effects on groundwater flowpaths and on springs recharge areas extent, whose total average discharge is about 10m3/s. Model calibration main goal has been the recharge areas permeability definition, posing the correspondence of calculated flows with measured springs’ flows; as a consequence, it’s been possible to improve the model reliability (uncertainty reduction) quantifying the flow residuals’ standard deviation offset.