Using Groundwater Models to Inform Water Management Decisions – from Months to Minutes!

Groundwater models are an indispensable source of information for the management of groundwater and surface water as a single resource. Their use is the only way to estimate and understand the effect of discrete changes to the groundwater system on surface water, and vice versa. By running a groundwater model both with and without a specific stress (e.g., a well or a recharge event) to the system, we can estimate how changes to that stress ripple through the overall hydrologic system.

These change simulations are straightforward in theory, however in practice they can become impractical given their esoteric nature. Unfortunately, one cannot simply pose the question and receive the desired information directly back from a model. There typically are numerous complicated steps that must be precisely completed by trained experts.

Leveraging technology to simplify this process enables water managers and policy makers to directly utilize complex models. Specifically, cloud technology has substantially reduced the time/cost of getting meaningful answers to these questions. Model evaluations that typically took months to complete, can now be efficiently executed in minutes using a standard laptop with an internet connection, and a little bit of curiosity.