Project Number:
WR12R002
Other Project Number:
2013WI327O
Funding Year:
2012
Contract Period:
7/1/2012 - 6/30/2014
Funding Source:
UWS
Investigator(s):
PIs:- Steven P. Loheide, UW-Madison, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Carolyn B. Voter, UW-Madison, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Abstract:
Background/Need: It has long been assumed that urbanization and the associated loss of pervious area leads to a decrease in groundwater recharge, but recent studies have produced conflicting results. While the importance of impervious area arrangement and connectivity has
been demonstrated in rainfall-runoff studies at various scales, very little work has been done to addresses how such differences in impervious area configuration may affect localized recharge rates. There is a need for physically based modeling efforts which are complex enough to calculated percolation through the unsaturated zone and detailed enough to capture nuanced differences in impervious area configuration at the surface.
Objectives: The objective of this study is to determine the extent to which the arrangement and connectivity of impervious areas in urban
residential lots impacts growing season recharge using lot-scale, physically based models.