Evaluation of CoupModel in Predicting Groundwater Levels

Abstract: The Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) has initiated a project to calibrate models to simulategroundwater levels in monitoring wells of their Groundwater Network, based on a commission fromthe Swedish Government after experiencing historically low groundwater levels and shortage in 2016and 2017. A version of the HBV model with 4 parameters, focusing on calculating groundwaterrecharge and levels, was manually calibrated to 119 groundwater stations in 2017 and the modelresults were classified according to a ‘good’, ‘poor’ or ‘bad’ visual fit to observations. In this thesis,the process-based model CoupModel, which allows the user to freely setup a model structure, wasused to simulate groundwater levels. The objectives of this thesis were to evaluate the usability of theCoupModel in groundwater level simulations and forecasting, and compare the results to previoussimulations using the HBV model. 22 groundwater stations of fast and slow responding aquifers, distributed all over Sweden, wereused to simulate groundwater levels with the CoupModel. A model structure with 11 parameters tocalibrate was constructed to represent all groundwater stations. A split-sample test was performed withcalibration of 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations and validation of the 10 simulations with the highestNash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The NSE performance was highest, and consistent through calibration and validation, for fastresponding aquifers using the CoupModel, whereas the performance of slow responding aquifers waslower. Residual analysis showed periodicity with under- and overestimations for low and highgroundwater levels, respectively, indicating that the model structure is not sufficient in representing allgroundwater stations. No relationship existed between CoupModel performance and HBV calibrationperformance, topographic position, aquifer type, location or distance to climate station. The HBVperformance was lower than for the CoupModel, with residuals of larger spread and periodicity. The CoupModel can be used for simulation and forecasting of groundwater levels, but a newmodel structure or individual structures for all groundwater stations must be constructed. A sensitivityanalysis of the parameters in the model structure must be performed to study the systematic under- andoverestimations.