Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2010NE199B

Towards groundwater recharge forecasting: monitoring and modeling episodic recharge responses to weather events

Institute: Nebraska
Year Established: 2010 Start Date: 2010-03-01 End Date: 2011-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $19,644 Total Non-Federal Funds: $39,292

Principal Investigators: John Gates

Project Summary: Sustaining water resources through future land use and climatic changes is a critical challenge facing the State of Nebraska and beyond. The need for accurate prediction of how hydrological systems will be affected by forthcoming environmental changes is widely recognized. The proposed project offers a powerful new tool for predicting inputs to groundwater - a vital source of water to cities, agriculture and ecosystems. The goal of the proposed project is to develop a method of predicting groundwater recharge on the timescale of individual rainfall events by combining hydrologic monitoring and modeling with weather radar. Rainfall-recharge linkages on the event scale will be explored using reflectivity-based rainfall intensity data with unsaturated flow modeling and matric potential profile time series data. Intended outcomes include a determination of the meteorological characteristics of storm events that contribute to groundwater recharge in Nebraska, and an assessment of the feasibility of predicting distributed groundwater recharge from radar.