Application of the Mixing Cell Model to the quantification of groundwater – surface water interaction

• Main Author: Matthews, Amy Jane
• Other Authors: Witthüser, K. T., Van Tonder, G. J.
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of the Free State 2013
• Subjects: Quantification; Groundwater resource assessment (GRAII); Groundwater baseflow; Mixing cell model; Surface water – groundwater interaction; Dissertation (M.Sc. (Institute for Groundwater Studies)) > University of the Free State; 2013; Aquifers; sami
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11660/1724

English: The significance of a reliable groundwater resource assessment is of growing importance as water resources are stretched to accommodate the growing population. An essential component of a groundwater resource assessment is the quantification of surface water – groundwater interaction. The insufficient amount of data in South Africa and the apparent lack of accuracy of current estimates of the groundwater component of baseflow lead to the investigation of a new methodology. The applicability of the Mixing Cell Model (MCM) to quantify the groundwater contribution to baseflow is examined to determine whether the method would be of use in groundwater resource assessments. The MCM simultaneously solves water and solute mass balances to determine unknown inflows to a system, in this application the groundwater component of baseflow. The incorporation of water quality data into the estimation of the surface water – groundwater interaction increases the use of available data, and thus has the ability to decrease the uncertainty of the estimation process. The balance equations are equated to an error term which is used in the quadratic programming solution of minimizing the square error sums in order to determine the unknown inflows. The mixing cell model is applied to datasets from the surface water – groundwater interaction test site developed by the University of the Free State, in addition to data collected along the middle Modder River during a fieldwork survey. The MCM is subsequently applied to a set of quaternary catchments in the Limpopo Province for which there are available calibrated estimates of the groundwater component of baseflow for the Sami and Hughes models. The MCM is further applied to the quaternary catchment D73F, located in the semi-arid Northern Cape, to assess the applicability of the mathematically based MCM in terms of a flow system located within a regionally-defined zero groundwater baseflow zone. The MCM results for each study area are assessed in comparison to groundwater baseflow ...