A geostatistical approach for groundwater head monitoring network optimisation: case of the Sfax superficial aquifer (Tunisia). (4th September 2012)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Triki, Ibtissem; Zairi, Moncef; Ben Dhia, Hamed
• Is Part Of: Water and environment journal. Volume 27:Number 3(2013)
• Page Start: 362
• Page End: 372
• Publication Date: 2012-09-04
• Subjects: Sewage -- Periodicals; Water-supply -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Water-supply engineering -- Periodicals; Pollution -- Periodicals; 628.1
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-6593.2012.00352.x
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1747-6585

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>In many developing countries, the groundwater monitoring network is randomly designed, and consequently needs to be revised and optimised to reduce operation time and cost, remove redundant piezometric data, and strengthen sparseness data zone with supplementary observation well. The geostatistical approach used in this work is based on the universal kriging variance combined with cross‐validation test. Hence, a rational interpolation of water table elevations was performed to evaluate the accuracy of data employed in the piezometric head modelling. In this study, the groundwater monitoring network of the Sfax superficial aquifer in the south east of Tunisia was optimised. The elimination of five observation wells induces the invariability in the variance of estimate due to their less contribution in interpretations of the groundwater level behaviour. However, 38 wells were added at areas of high variance of the kriging in order to ameliorate the spatial coverage of the monitoring network.</p> </abstract>