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Partial Wavelet Coherence to Evaluate Scale-dependent Relationships Between Precipitation/Surface Water and Groundwater Levels in a Groundwater System

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Abstract

Identifying the scale-dependent control of various surface factors on a groundwater system is a challenge due to the potential interdependence between these factors. Here, this challenge was addressed using partial wavelet coherency (PWC), which can detect localized and scale-specific bivariate relationships between predictor and response variables after removing the impact of other variables. The analysis was done for groundwater systems in a humid area (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and an arid area (Lake Havasu City, Arizona). The results indicate that the total precipitation and precipitation duration show the advantage in controlling the groundwater flow in humid and arid areas, respectively. Precipitation has more significant impacts on the coherence between surface water and groundwater in an arid area, which decreases by 3% on small time scales (< 120 days) and increases by 6% on large scales (> 120 days). However, surface water shows more important effects on the coherence between precipitation and groundwater on large scales in a humid area, which decreases by 47%. Overall, the analysis highlights that the impacts of precipitation (or surface water) on the coherence between surface water (or precipitation) and groundwater level are changing with the time scale and climatic belt. The temporal scale dependency is primarily led by the seasonality of the influence factors, while the spatial dependency is mainly due to various evapotranspiration rates and drought/flood episodes. These findings provide useful insights into untangling the localized and scale-specific bivariate relationships in a groundwater system, which is an important topic in water-resource prediction.

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Data Availability

The data used in this study can be obtained from the corresponding author HongGuang Sun (shg@hhu.edu.cn) or downloaded data according to the description of data (2.6 Data for Application).

Code Availability

Software packages of wavelet transform and bivariate wavelet coherence can be obtained at the website: http://www.pol.ac.uk/home/research/waveletcoherence/. And the code of partial wavelet coherence can be obtained at the website: https://figshare.com/s/bc97956f43fe5734c784.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China (Grant No. BK20190024), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11972148), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. B210202092). This paper does not necessarily reflect the view of the funding agencies.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, P. R. China (Grant No. BK20190024), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11972148), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2019B16014). YZ was funded by the Alabama Center of Excellence. This paper does not necessarily reflect the view of the funding agencies.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Information Science, Yantai University, Yantai, Shandong, 264005, China

    Xiufen Gu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210098, China

    HongGuang Sun

  3. College of Mechanics and Materials, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210098, China

    HongGuang Sun & Shujun Zhang

  4. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Yong Zhang

  5. College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210098, China

    Chengpeng Lu

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  1. Xiufen Gu
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  2. HongGuang Sun
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Contributions

Hong Guang Sun and Yong Zhang initialized the study. Xiufen Gu drafted the manuscript. Hong Guang Sun, Yong Zhang, Shujun Zhang, and Chengpeng Lu improved the manuscript. All authors discussed and commented on the manuscript at all stages.

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Correspondence to HongGuang Sun.

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Gu, X., Sun, H., Zhang, Y. et al. Partial Wavelet Coherence to Evaluate Scale-dependent Relationships Between Precipitation/Surface Water and Groundwater Levels in a Groundwater System. Water Resour Manage 36, 2509–2522 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03157-6

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