Quantifying the magnitude and timing of groundwater returns to streams from irrigation is important for the management of natural resources in irrigation districts where the quantity or quality of surface water can be affected. Deep vadose zones and perched water tables can complicate the modelling of these fluxes, and model outputs may be biased if these factors are misrepresented or ignored. This study was undertaken in the Murray Basin in southern Australia to develop and test an integrated modelling method that links irrigation activity to surface water impacts by accounting for all key hydrological processes, including perching and vadose zone transmission. The method incorporates an agronomic water balance to simulate root zone processes, semi-analytical transfer functions to simulate the deeper vadose zone, and an existing numerical groundwater model to simulate irrigation returns to the Murray River and inform the management of river salinity. The integrated modelling can be calibrated by various means, depending on context, and has been shown to be beneficial for management purposes without introducing an unnecessary level of complexity to traditional modelling workflows. Its applicability to other irrigation settings is discussed.

中文翻译：

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模拟地下水从带有栖息地下水位的灌溉区返回到溪流

量化地下水从灌溉返回溪流的量级和时间，对于地表水的数量或质量可能受到影响的灌溉区的自然资源管理非常重要。深包气带和栖息地下水位会使这些通量的建模复杂化，如果这些因素被错误表述或忽略，模型输出可能会出现偏差。这项研究是在澳大利亚南部的墨累盆地进行的，目的是开发和测试一种综合建模方法，通过考虑所有关键水文过程，包括栖息和包气带传输，将灌溉活动与地表水影响联系起来。该方法结合了农学水平衡来模拟根区过程，半解析传递函数来模拟更深的包气带，以及现有的地下水数值模型，用于模拟墨累河的灌溉回流，并为河流盐度管理提供信息。集成建模可以根据上下文通过各种方式进行校准，并且已被证明有利于管理目的，而不会给传统建模工作流程带来不必要的复杂程度。讨论了它对其他灌溉设置的适用性。