Investigating the impact of the properties of pilot points on calibration of groundwater models: case study of a karst catchment in Rote Island, Indonesia

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Publication Date

January 2017

Abstract

A robust configuration of pilot points in the parameterisation step of a model is crucial to accurately obtain a satisfactory model performance. However, the recommendations provided by the majority of recent researchers on pilot-point use are considered somewhat impractical. In this study, a practical approach is proposed for using pilot-point properties (i.e. number, distance and distribution method) in the calibration step of a groundwater model. For the first time, the relative distance–area ratio (d/A) and head-zonation-based (HZB) method are introduced, to assign pilot points into the model domain by incorporating a user-friendly zone ratio. This study provides some insights into the trade-off between maximising and restricting the number of pilot points, and offers a relative basis for selecting the pilot-point properties and distribution method in the development of a physically based groundwater model. The grid-based (GB) method is found to perform comparably better than the HZB method in terms of model performance and computational time. When using the GB method, this study recommends a distance–area ratio of 0.05, a distance–x-grid length ratio (d/X grid) of 0.10, and a distance–y-grid length ratio (d/Y grid) of 0.20.

Keywords

Groundwater Modelling, Parameter Estimation, Geostatistics, Pilot Point, Indonesia

Document Type

Article

Notes

Hydrogeology Journal, Vol. 25, no. 6 (2017).

Identifier

SFS0073329_00001

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