Scientific Theme: Advanced Modeling and Observing Systems

Complementary Research: Innovative Research Program
4. Couple the hydroclimate scenarios with the refined basin-scale groundwater flow model to generate longterm
predictions of groundwater response and its impacts on sustainable water resource availability and instream
flows in the South Platte.
5. Extend the overall modeling framework of 2, 3, and 4 to generate groundwater response scenarios to the
combined influence of projected climate change and land use changes. This will lead to improved
understanding of effective strategies for optimal land use planning under changing climate.
Interdisciplinary. The proposed research, which focuses on groundwater and its interaction with surface water, will
provide an excellent complement to surface water studies of the Western U.S. hydroclimatology under the Western
Water Assessment (WWA) research program of CIRES/CDC/NOAA. We expect results from this effort to lead into
a larger comprehensive proposal to funding agencies such as NSF, or DOE.
Innovative. The proposal aims to understand the robustness of groundwater levels in the South Platte basin under
climate change, climate variability and land use change scenarios. This will be achieved by coupling a hydroclimate
generator to a basin-scale groundwater model. Furthermore, physical mechanisms governing the spatio-temporal
variability of groundwater levels will be teased out from this framework. These two aspects of the proposal are
unique and have never been attempted before. Another unique aspect of this work derives from the application of
basin-scale three-dimensional groundwater flow models over decadal time scales – tremendous advances in
computational technology over the last 2-3 years have made it feasible to run these models involving ~106-7
computational nodes, over long durations on high-end desktop workstations. We will use a state-of-the-art 64-bit
AMD workstation equipped with 16GB of RAM for this purpose.
Figure 2 (right). Water table declines in the
South Platte Alluvial Aquifer during 1945-
1985. Source for Figures 1 and 2:
Groundwater Atlas of the United States.
146
Figure 1 (left). Water Balance of the South Platte
Alluvial Aquifer showing the groundwater contribution
to streamflow