Effects of Riverbed Conductance on Stream Depletion

In the western United States and other regions of the world where growing population and changing climates are threatening water supplies, accurate modeling of potential human impacts on water resources is becoming more important. Stream depletion, the reduction of surface water flow due to the extraction of groundwater from a hydraulically connected aquifer, is one of the more direct ways that development can alter water availability, degrade water quality and endanger aquatic habitats. These factors have made the accurate modeling of stream depletion an important step in the process of installing groundwater wells in regions that are susceptible to this phenomenon. Proper estimation of stream depletion requires appropriate parameterization of aquifer and streambed hydraulic properties. Although many studies have conducted numerical investigations to determine stream depletion at specific sites, they typically do not measure streambed hydraulic conductivity (Kr), but rather assume a representative value. In this work, we establish a hypothetical model aquifer that is 2000 m by 1600 m and has a meandering stream running through its center. The Kr of the model stream is varied from 1.0x10-9 m s-1 to 1.0x10-2 m s-1 in order to determine the sensitivity of the stream depletion calculations to this parameter. It was found that when Kr is in the lower part of this range, slight changes in K¬r lead to significant impacts on the calculated stream depletion values. We vary Kr along the stream channel according to naturally occurring patterns and demonstrate that alterations of the parameter over a few orders of magnitude can affect the estimated stream depletion caused by a well at a specified location. The numerical simulations show that the mean value of Kr and its spatial variability along the channel should be realistic to develop an accurate model of stream depletion.