Liao. et al. 2022 Geoscientific Model Development

Representing lateral groundwater flow in Earth system models

Chang Liao^1*, L. Ruby Leung¹, Yilin Fang², Teklu Tesfa², Savio Ferreira³, Luiz Candido³, Terezinha Monteiro³, Javier Tomasella³, Alexandre Souza³, , and Alessandro Araujo⁴

¹ Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

² Hydrology Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

³ Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA), Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA), Manaus, Brazil

⁴ Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Brazil

* corresponding author: chang.liao@pnnl.gov

Abstract

Lateral groundwater flow plays an important role in controlling water table dynamics. Due to the relatively coarse spatial resolutions of land surface models, this process is often omitted even though it can be significant due to subgrid heterogeneity. In this study, we developed a physical based model to simulate lateral groundwater flow using hillslopes to represent subgrid spatial variability in topography. This model explicitly considers the smooth transition between different water table scenarios (e.g., with or without a seepage phase in the lower elevations). We coupled this model to the land component (ELM) and river component (MOSART) of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) and applied it at global scale. Simulations show that lateral groundwater flow is affected by both topography and river stage through their impacts on water table gradient. Future improvements are needed because representation of hillslope is the key to model lateral flow processes.

Journal reference

Liao. et al. (2022). Representing lateral groundwater flow in Earth system models.

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