A WEB-based GIS tool for estimating recharge and discharge across the Australian continent  

Authors / CoAuthors

Gow, L.J. | Wilford, J.R. | Kilgour, P.

Abstract

One of the primary requirements of managing our water resources sustainably is an understanding of the water balance. Key components of a water balance model are inputs of recharge and outputs or discharge. Rates of recharge and discharge change in response to climate, landscape morphology, geology, soil/regolith, native vegetation and landuse (including landuse history). The variable nature of these parameters results in a high degree of local variability when determining recharge and discharge fluxes both spatially and temporally. Water managers deal with this complexity in a variety of ways. Where detailed information on key parameters influencing recharge and discharge are available, comprehensive, fully distributed groundwater models are used. However, in most cases this information is not available (e.g. data poor areas) and typically a crude estimation of recharge (2-10% of average annual rainfall) is given. In these cases, discharge is often assumed to be zero. A collaborative project, funded by NWC and involving CSIRO Land and Water and Geoscience Australia, has developed a new national framework for estimating recharge and discharge in data poor areas. The approach consists of excel-based models that allow the user to populate key input fields (e.g. rainfall, soil and regolith texture, bedrock type, vegetation) to generate estimates of recharge and discharge. These excel models have been coupled with a complementary national-scale GIS dataset to assist the user in populating model input fields. In combination, the models and the GIS datasets allow the user to rapidly estimate recharge and/or discharge anywhere in Australia. The national-scale GIS datasets are available through a WEB-based interface. This presentation will focus on the development of the input datasets and will provide a brief demonstration of the WEB-based interface.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

71529

Contact for the resource

Keywords

• External PublicationConference Paper

( Theme )

• groundwater

( Theme )

• hydrogeology

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

Publication Date

2011-02-14T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - restricted

Use - license

Status

Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

Downloads and Links

Source Information

Source data not available.