3-D Dynamic groundwater-river interaction modeling incorporating climate variability and future water demand

The regional-scale transient groundwater-river interaction model is developed to gain a better understanding of the regional-scale relationships and interactions between groundwater and river system and quantify the residual river flow after groundwater abstraction from the aquifers with climate variability in the Waimea Plains, New Zealand. The effect of groundwater abstraction and climate variability on river flows is evaluated by calculating river flows at the downstream area for three different drought years (a 1 in 10 drought year, 1 in 20 drought year, and 1 in 24 drought year) and an average year with metered water abstraction data. The effect of future water demand (50 year projection) on river flows is also evaluated. A significant increase in the occurrence of zero flow, or very low flow of 100 L/sec at the downstream area is predicted due to large groundwater abstraction increase with climate variability. Modeling results shows the necessity of establishing dynamic cutback scenarios of water usage to users over the period of drought conditions considering different climate variability from current allocation limit to reduce the occurrence of low flow conditions at the downstream area.