Fully Conservative Coupling of HEC-RAS with MODFLOW to Simulate Stream–Aquifer Interactions in a Drainage Basin
Journal of Hydrology (2008) 353, 129– 142 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol Fully conservative coupling of HEC-RAS with MODFLOW to simulate stream–aquifer interactions in a drainage basin Leticia B. Rodriguez a,*, Pablo A. Cello b,1, Carlos A. Vionnet a,2, David Goodrich c a Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ USA b Facultad de Ingenierı`a y Ciencias Hı`dricas, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, CC 217, 3000 Santa Fe, Argentina c Southwest Watershed Research, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2000 East Allen Road, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA Received 20 September 2007; received in revised form 10 January 2008; accepted 6 February 2008 KEYWORDS Summary This work describes the application of a methodology designed to improve the Groundwater–surface representation of water surface profiles along open drain channels within the framework water interaction; of regional groundwater modelling. The proposed methodology employs an iterative pro- Hydrologic modelling; cedure that combines two public domain computational codes, MODFLOW and HEC-RAS. In MODFLOW; spite of its known versatility, MODFLOW contains several limitations to reproduce eleva- HEC-RAS tion profiles of the free surface along open drain channels. The Drain Module available within MODFLOW simulates groundwater flow to open drain channels as a linear function of the difference between the hydraulic head in the aquifer and the hydraulic head in the drain, where it considers a static representation of water surface profiles along drains. The proposed methodology developed herein uses HEC-RAS, a one-dimensional (1D) com- puter code for open surface water calculations, to iteratively estimate hydraulic profiles along drain channels in order to improve the aquifer/drain interaction process.
[Show full text]