Modeling Groundwater Resources in Surfer

Hi Armandt,
I am the author of the article and can give you a bit more information if you would like. The premise of the methodology was to use a combination of measured groundwater data and the empirical relationship between surficial elevation and groundwater elevation to create the groundwater elevation grid, rather than just allowing Surfer to contour the elevation.

It has been a while since I have done this, but I believe the method involved using the Grid | Math functions to create evaluate the groundwater elevations relative to the surface elevation. Because the area had very dramatic relief, allowing Surfer to grid the data without assessment of the topography resulted in groundwater elevations where groundwater surfaced in areas where we did not see springs.

Using Grid|Math to evaluate different "groundwater zones" allowed us to great a grid representing each region (upper, lower, transitional). Once a grid of each zone was developed, I used the Grid | Mosaic command to "stitch each individual grid into one complete grid. This method worked for this particular site, to model the groundwater elevation, even resulting in springs in the correct locations.

I hope that gives you a bit more insight into my methodology. Good luck with your analysis!

Hi Armandt - I can't speak to the methodology used, but let me reach out to the author to see if he can provide some insight.

Hi Blakelee - thanks, I viewed the article, but I am interested in the methodology followed during the study, especially the use of the empirical relationship between groundwater and elevation to estimate the groundwater levels, and how that data served as inputs.

I cannot find the actual report or publication online, I tried to contact the author as well. Do you perhaps have suggestion of where to find the publication, or an indication of the methodology used to generate the groundwater map using the estimated empirical relationships?

Hi Armandt - you can view the full article here http://www.goldensoftware.com/surfer-case-studies/modeling-groundwater-resources-surfer. Hope this helps!

Is there anyway to view the full report/article?

This is very interesting and would aid in a project I am busy with in South Africa.