Accounting for Stream Bank Storage for a Seasonal Groundwater Model

Abstract

In recent research on groundwater and surfacewater interaction, attention has focused on the study of water exchanges between the near-stream aquifer and stream. One of the important near stream processes is bank storage. The aim of this thesis is to document the procedure required to develop a bank storage model that can be linked into a MODFLOW groundwater model. For this purpose, a groundwater model and a MATLAB code that can simulate bank storage process was developed. These two models were linked through the well package of MODFLOW. Result indicated that the number of stage rise and shape of stage hydrograph entering to stream system, when they have the same average stream stage, produced similar net flux of water between surface water and groundwater. In addition, the results show that reaches, which were gaining during normal flow of the stream network, can become a losing stream during high flow periods.