Predicting Daily Water Table Fluctuations in Karstic Aquifers from GIS-Based Modelling, Climatic Settings and Extraction Wells

In semiarid regions, karstic aquifers are in some cases essential since they often constitute the only source of water supply. The increasing demand for water in these regions is responsible for the decreasing water table levels. As a consequence, groundwater management becomes indispensable. A robust black-box model of the Solana aquifer, a large karstic aquifer in Alicante province, is developed considering GIS-based modelling of the studied area, climatic settings and anthropic disturbances (water extractions and irrigation returns). The proposed model accurately predicts water table levels evolution (with EF index of 0.97 and RMSE of 0.09) and assesses the recharge rates. The model aims to become a useful tool in order to better understand the characteristics of karstic aquifers. A distinctive feature of the model is that it estimates the heterogeneous effective porosities along the depth profiles of the aquifer, which provides an advantage related to detect changes in the hydraulic transmissivity within karstic formations.This study was partially financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Project CGL2011-25162. A pre-doctoral research fellowship (BES-2012-053468) was awarded to C. Pla for this project