Groundwater modeling of coastal aquifers using calibration in pre-development state

Groundwater modeling under pre-development state conditions is widely acclaimed as the most efficient tool, which can quantify the aquifer dynamics before manmade interventions, leading to a base from which sustainable development can be planned. While most studies focus on the application of pre-development groundwater modeling to define the rates of sustainable development of an aquifer, this study investigates the performance of a calibrated pre-development state groundwater model under transient state conditions in the Argolis plain. The Argolis plain, one of the most important agricultural areas in Greece, is of great hydrological interest, due to of its hydrological and hydrogeological complexity. The simulation of the groundwater flow of the unconsolidated aquifer was accomplished by using the groundwater modelling platform FREEWAT, a free and open-source software integrated in QGIS. The sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation for the calibration of the model was performed by U_CODE-2014. Comparison of the values of the simulated piezometric level, with observed values, was carried out using the Head Observation Package (HOB), according to which 21 wells were used as monitoring wells. The results were evaluated using the Nash–Sutcliffe index.