Virtual wells used for pumpage for the Central Valley Hydrologic Model (CVHM)


Abstract: This digital dataset contains the virtual wells used for pumpage for the Central Valley Hydrologic Model (CVHM).  
The Central Valley encompasses an approximate 50,000 square-kilometer region of California. The complex hydrologic 
system of the Central Valley is simulated using the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) numerical modeling code MODFLOW-FMP 
(Schmid and others, 2006).  This simulation is referred to here as the CVHM (Faunt, 2009). Utilizing MODFLOW-FMP, the CVHM 
simulates groundwater and surface-water flow, irrigated agriculture, land subsidence, and other key processes in the Central Valley 
on a monthly basis from 1961-2003.  The total active modeled area is 20,334 square-miles on a finite difference grid comprising 441 
rows and 98 columns. Slightly less than 50 percent of the cells are active. The CVHM model grid has a uniform horizontal 
discretization of 1x1 square mile and is oriented parallel to the valley axis, 34 degrees west of north (Faunt, 2009). Groundwater 
pumpage is a major part of the groundwater budget of the Central Valley, and is grouped into two categories for this study: 
agricultural and urban (which includes municipal and industrial sources). Discharge from agricultural wells rarely is metered in 
the Central Valley (Diamond and Williamson, 1983), and therefore must be estimated by indirect means.  If consumptive use can 
be quantified, groundwater pumpage may be estimated by taking into account surface-water supply, irrigation efficiency, and effective 
precipitation. Irrigation efficiency, as used in this report, is the percentage of water delivered to the Water Balance Subregion (WBS) 
that is available for consumptive use. The newly developed MODFLOW-FMP uses this method (Schmid and others, 2006).  Wells 
were simulated as a combination of farm wells (Schmid and others, 2006) and multi-node wells (Halford and Hanson, 2002) (Faunt, 
2009; fig. C3). Farm wells are simulated in a manner similar to the WEL package (Harbaugh and others, 2000) and the pumpage is 
distributed among each of the farm wells (Schmid and others, 2006). Agricultural pumpage is estimated through the FMP.   A single 
well that represents the composite of all wells within a model cell is referred to here as a virtual well.   For the FMP, in each WBS, 
a virtual well was placed in each model cell where an irrigated crop was the predominant land use for a given time frame. Because 
the extent of irrigated agriculture changes through time, wells were added and deleted accordingly in the model during the simulation 
period. In general, wells were added through time because the extent of irrigated agriculture generally increases through time. In some 
areas, however, agricultural wells were replaced by urban wells in the model as the land use changed from agricultural to urban. The 
CVHM is the most recent regional-scale model of the Central Valley developed by the USGS.The CVHM was developed as part of the 
USGS Groundwater Resources Program (see "Foreword", Chapter A, page iii, for details).

Tags: Alameda County, Amador County, Butte County, CV-RASA, Calaveras County, California, Central Valley, Central Valley Aquifer, Central Valley Hydrologic Model, Colusa County, Contra Costa County, El Dorado County, Flow Model CVHM, Fresno County, Glenn County, Groundwater Availability of the Central Valley Aquifer, Humboldt County, Kern County, Kings County, Lake County, Madera County, Mariposa County, Mendocino County, Merced County, Monterey County, Napa County, Nevada County, Placer County, Sacramento County, Sacramento Valley, San Benito County, San Joaquin County, San Joaquin Valley, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County, Santa Clara County, Shasta County, Solano County, Sonoma County, Stanislaus County, Sutter County, Tehama County, Texture Model, Trinity County, Tulare County, Tuolumne County, Ventura County, Yolo County, Yuba County, central-valley-california, data.gov, geostatistics, groundwater, hydrogeology, hydrology, inlandWaters, model, unconsolidated sediments, virtual well
Organization: Water Data Partners