Bachelor's Essays (Embargoed)

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Browsing Bachelor's Essays (Embargoed) by Issue Date "2018-12"

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    Statistical Analysis and Modeling of Spatial and Temporal Data in a Floodplain Forest
    Collins, Emma Lise; Callahan, Timothy J
    Congaree National Park lies in a floodplain forested wetland in South Carolina, and is prone to flooding, both from overland flow as well as saturation-excess flooding. The goal of this study was to estimate the water budget of Congaree National Park, and elucidate the physical processes driving groundwater behavior. We performed Priestley-Taylor potential evaporation (PET) calculations using meteorological parameters from a weather station within the park. The annual average PET was estimated as 3.41 mm/day with Priestley-Taylor estimates, with a growing season average of 4.75 mm/day and dormant season average of 1.90 mm/day. Simulating groundwater conditions using MODFLOW software with PEST parameter estimation software, we estimated an average annual groundwater recharge rate of 0.11 mm/day, with growing season average 0.14 mm/day and dormant season average of 1.0 mm/day. Assuming that precipitation is equal to the difference of recharge and evapotranspiration, we estimated actual ET (AET) with the recharge values, yielding an annual average of 2.99 mm/day, with growing and dormant season averages of 3.20 and 1.48 mm/day, respectively. Our results either suggest that AET is less than PET (estimated AET <88% of PET in all cases), groundwater transpiration is not the only significant component of total ET, or a combination of these two hypotheses. The model domain for recharge estimates was restricted to approximately 165 ha around groundwater monitoring wells installed in the park. Recharge estimates could be upscaled to all of Congaree National Park using geostatistical methods such as cokriging (extending estimates beyond the model domain based on the relationship between recharge and factors such as topography and hydraulic conductivity, etc), or upscaled regionally using regression techniques depending on average annual precipitation and PET.