Groundwater modeling projects that address local processes may benefit from detailed geologic maps and reports.  All geologic maps, however, are not the same.  Beyond the normal concerns of geological accuracy, modern computer mapping techniques integrate several additional concerns that groundwater modelers should understand.

Computer interpolation of geologic surfaces or of geologic properties can add artifacts that may be of importance to groundwater modeling.  These artifacts can be caused by poor selection of interpolation parameters or by choices related to deterministic or probabilistic approaches to interpolation.  Other issues of concern to groundwater modelers relate to the detail that is provided in a map.  Detail in geologic maps has traditionally been viewed as a function of the scale of the map.  With computerization of mapping, map scale does not provide the same constraints.   Concerns of map feature accuracy and completeness must be considered.  The distribution and spacing of data have a significant affect on the features that are included and also are part of the accuracy and completeness concerns.  Geologic features and distributions of geologic properties will often need some level of generalization.  This generalization can be made within the geologic map by the mapper, or can be applied later via upscaling or regridding by the mapper or the groundwater modeler.  In either situation, the consequences of generalization, as they apply to the groundwater model and modeling objectives, need to be understood by the modeler.  In the end, before parameterizing a groundwater model with computerized geologic map information, modelers should have sufficient understanding of modern, geologic mapping methods to be able to use the maps reliably.