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Complexity‐reduced in the hydroclimatological modelling of aquifer's discharge
Author(s) -
Diodato Nazzareno,
Fiorillo Francesco
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
water and environment journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1747-6593
pISSN - 1747-6585
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-6593.2012.00336.x
Subject(s) - aquifer , environmental science , precipitation , hydrology (agriculture) , spring (device) , discharge , snow , karst , groundwater , climatology , meteorology , geology , drainage basin , geography , mechanical engineering , paleontology , geotechnical engineering , cartography , engineering
Climate variability induces considerable interannual fluctuations in spring discharge, especially in mountain areas, where groundwater is recharged mainly by rain and snow melt. This study presents the discharge climatological model ( DISCLIM ), which was developed to test a complexity‐reduced approach to perform historical reconstruction in the lack of physical assumptions. The M ount C ervialto aquifer ( S outhern I taly) is the test site, where a powerful karst spring is monitored since the 1920s and is very sensitive to climatic conditions. DISCLIM incorporates seasonal precipitation and climate indicators only. Despite its simplicity, DISCLIM has been able to well estimate the yearly fluctuations of discharge hydrological, explaining about 90% of the interannual variability at the calibration stage, and more than 80% at validation stage. This means that DISCLIM can be easily used for estimating the discharge in historical times, when no all the hydrological balance data are available for the purpose.