water Article Integration of 2D Lateral Groundwater Flow into the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model and Effects on Simulated Fluxes for Different Grid Resolutions and Aquifer Diffusivities Johanna M. Scheidegger 1,*, Christopher R. Jackson 1,* , Sekhar Muddu 2, Sat Kumar Tomer 3 and Rosa Filgueira 4 1 British Geological Survey, Environmental Science Centre, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK 2 Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India;
[email protected] 3 Satyukt Analytics, Ashwath Nagar, Bangalore 560094, India;
[email protected] 4 School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] (J.M.S.);
[email protected] (C.R.J.) Abstract: Better representations of groundwater processes need to be incorporated into large-scale hydrological models to improve simulations of regional- to global-scale hydrology and climate, as well as understanding of feedbacks between the human and natural systems. We incorporated a 2D groundwater flow model into the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) hydrological model code to address its lack of a lateral groundwater flow component. The water table was coupled with the variably saturated VIC soil column allowing bi-directional exchange of water between the aquifer Citation: Scheidegger, J.M.; Jackson, and the soil. We then investigated how variations in aquifer properties and grid resolution affect C.R.; Muddu, S.; Tomer, S.K.; modelled evapotranspiration (ET), runoff and groundwater recharge. We simulated nine idealised, Filgueira, R. Integration of 2D Lateral homogenous aquifers with different combinations of transmissivity, storage coefficient, and three Groundwater Flow into the Variable grid resolutions.