Prediction Model for Spatial and Temporal Variation of Groundwater Level Based on River Stage

Abstract

Groundwater level (GWL) is an important subsoil characteristic, closely related to geological, geographical, and hydrological conditions. In urban areas, a key influence component for GWL is river stage (RS) because of the near-river location and low rainfall infiltration into the ground. In this study, the spatial and temporal variation of GWL was analyzed, and a GWL prediction model based on river stage was proposed. For this purpose, a series of the finite-element (FE) analyses were performed considering various geological and hydrological conditions. The spatial and temporal responses of GWL to river stage from the analyses were quantified for various permeability and river stage conditions. Based on results of the FE analyses, a correlation model between GWL and river stage was established. The model parameters were evaluated and given in forms of design equations. The proposed method provides a simple and effective way for predicting GWL based on river stage, without an elaborate modeling process and sophisticated numerical scheme that requires heavy computation efforts. To check the validity of the proposed GWL prediction method, a test site was selected and adopted into the comparison. The predicted GWL using the proposed method indicated close agreement with the measured GWL.