National governments and international organizations such as the European Commission, are promoting the increased use of information and communication technologies to assist scientists in the “mining” of knowledge. A typical workflow for a hydrogeologist consists of investigating and reporting hydrogeological processes in a study area, from data collection to model-based analysis. While hydrogeologists may feel insufficiently skilled to undertake the self-automatizing and digitizing process, the digitalization of the aforementioned workflow can be easily obtained by means of agile and parsimonious methodologies based on free and open-source software, and by using existing standards. This route is demonstrated for the digitalization of a vadose-zone monitoring system, where a large number of raw data related to water infiltration through the vadose zone are collected. The main aspects of the proposed methodology are a structured database (DB) where field data are stored, and a Python script to manage and process the available data. The structured DB was designed to store data recorded by field sensors and to generate inputs to run a transfer-function-based model to simulate percolation to the water table. Field data and model outputs were also exploited to automatically generate summary reports, like plots and table statistics. The proposed methodology can be generalized to other hydrogeological processes and case studies, as it is based on commonly available standards, basic knowledge of data-storage and data-management, and elementary programming skills to connect the different components of its suite.

各国政府和欧洲委员会等国际组织正在促进信息和通信技术的更多使用，以协助科学家“挖掘”知识。水文地质学家的典型工作流程包括调查和报告研究区域内的水文地质过程，从数据收集到基于模型的分析。尽管水文地质学家可能感觉不够熟练，无法进行自我自动化和数字化过程，但是可以通过基于自由和开源软件的敏捷和简约方法，并使用现有标准，轻松地获得上述工作流程的数字化。这条路线已在渗流区监控系统的数字化中得到了证明，收集了大量与水通过渗流带渗透有关的原始数据。所提出的方法的主要方面是存储字段数据的结构化数据库（DB），以及用于管理和处理可用数据的Python脚本。结构化的DB旨在存储由现场传感器记录的数据，并生成输入以运行基于传递函数的模型来模拟渗入地下水位。还利用了现场数据和模型输出来自动生成摘要报告，例如曲线图和表格统计信息。所提出的方法论可以推广到其他水文地质过程和案例研究，因为它基于通用的标准，数据存储和数据管理的基本知识以及连接其套件的不同组成部分的基本编程技能。