Estimating Groundwater Withdrawal in Poorly Gauged Agricultural Basins

A method is presented for estimating the annual groundwater withdrawal based on water balance resulting from surface and groundwater hydrological considerations. The unknown groundwater losses of the aquifer are estimated from the groundwater level fluctuations, the specific yield and the groundwater withdrawal prior to the installation of the irrigation network. The meteorological and hydrometric data are used in the Sacramento hydrological conceptual model for the estimation of the stored groundwater volume, via minimization of the difference between the simulated and measured stream discharge. Following the installation of the network due to poorly kept field records, an initial estimation of the groundwater withdrawal is made based on the fluctuations of the groundwater level, the specific yield, and the annual precipitation. The monthly stored groundwater volume is verified against the volume obtained during the recharge of the basin (November–April). The difference between the groundwater volume and the measured discharge of the basin (May–October) is in agreement with the initial estimation of the groundwater withdrawal. This method is applied successfully in an agricultural basin on the island of Crete, Greece and its novelty lies in the fact that it can be used in basins where groundwater withdrawal is not known or data is incomplete.