Metamodelling of Naturalised Groundwater Levels at a Regional Level in New Zealand

Jing Yang (), Channa Rajanayaka, Christopher J. Daughney, Doug Booker, Rebecca Morris and Mike Thompson
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Jing Yang: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
Channa Rajanayaka: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
Christopher J. Daughney: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington 6021, New Zealand
Doug Booker: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
Rebecca Morris: Greater Wellington, Wellington 6011, New Zealand
Mike Thompson: Greater Wellington, Wellington 6011, New Zealand

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 18, 1-15

Abstract: Groundwater is under pressure from increasing demands for agriculture, industry, domestic uses and support of ecosystems. Understanding the natural state of a groundwater system helps policy makers manage groundwater sustainably. Here we developed a metamodelling approach based on stepwise linear regression that emulates the functionality of physically-based models in the three primary aquifers of the Greater Wellington region of New Zealand. The inputs for the metamodels included local weather data, and nearby river flow data. The metamodels were calibrated and validated against the available simulations of naturalised groundwater level time series from physically-based models for 47 selected wells. For 36 of these wells, the metamodels had Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency and coefficient of determination over 0.5, showing that they could adequately mimic naturalised groundwater level dynamics as simulated by the physically-based groundwater models. The remaining 11 wells had unsatisfactory performance and were typically located far away from rivers or along the coast. The results also showed that modelled groundwater levels in the aquifer’s recharge zone were more sensitive to short-term (less than 2 weeks lag) than long-term river flow (above 4 weeks to 1 year lag), whereas the converse pattern was observed for the aquifer’s discharge zone. Although some special considerations are needed, this metamodelling framework can be generally applied to other aquifers to support groundwater resource management at a lower cost than updating physically-based models.

Keywords: groundwater level; metamodelling; model performance; regional simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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