REFINING CONCEPTUAL GROUND-WATER MODELS USING THERMAL BASEFLOW ESTIMATES

Ground-water models are calibrated to hydrologic observations in order to derive model parameters (such as regional permeability) that cannot be independently measured. The purpose of this study is to compute the relative influence of head observations and discharge observations on model calibration. It is hypothesized that improved confidence in parameter estimation can be achieved by the spatial refinement of discharge observations along a stream. The site location for this study is the Ischua Creek Basin, where discharge measurements have been previously measured at many points along a stream using temperature as an indicator of ground-water discharge. The influence of this unusually large number of discharge of observations on model calibration is to be tested by returning parameter optimization statistics to a spatial (GIS) database. This is to be achieved using tools newly created with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). These tools allow calibration statistics to be spatially displayed in a GIS database. These tools also allow the hypothesis to be tested by the comparison of multiple model calibration statistics.