High Recharge Areas in the Choushui River Alluvial Fan (Taiwan) Assessed from Recharge Potential Analysis and Average Storage Variation Indexes

Entropy

Jui-Pin Tsai¹  Yu-Wen Chen¹  Liang-Cheng Chang¹  Yi-Ming Kuo²  Yu-Hsuan Tu¹  Chen-Che Pan¹ 

[1] Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao-Tung University, No. 1001, University Road, Hsinchu City 30010, Taiwan; E-Mails:;School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China; E-Mail:

关键词: high recharge areas;    groundwater recharge potential;    average storage variation;    simulated annealing;    geographical information system;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e17041558

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

High recharge areas significantly influence the groundwater quality and quantity in regional groundwater systems. Many studies have applied recharge potential analysis (RPA) to estimate groundwater recharge potential (GRP) and have delineated high recharge areas based on the estimated GRP. However, most of these studies define the RPA parameters with supposition, and this represents a major source of uncertainty for applying RPA. To objectively define the RPA parameter values without supposition, this study proposes a systematic method based on the theory of parameter identification. A surrogate variable, namely the average storage variation (ASV) index, is developed to calibrate the RPA parameters, because of the lack of direct GRP observations. The study results show that the correlations between the ASV indexes and computed GRP values improved from 0.67 before calibration to 0.85 after calibration, thus indicating that the calibrated RPA parameters represent the recharge characteristics of the study area well; these data also highlight how defining the RPA parameters with ASV indexes can help to improve the accuracy. The calibrated RPA parameters were used to estimate the GRP distribution of the study area, and the GRP values were graded into five levels. High and excellent level areas are defined as high recharge areas, which composed 7.92% of the study area. Overall, this study demonstrates that the developed approach can objectively define the RPA parameters and high recharge areas of the Choushui River alluvial fan, and the results should serve as valuable references for the Taiwanese government in their efforts to conserve the groundwater quality and quantity of the study area.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
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