Abstract
In this paper, the pattern of groundwater level fluctuations is investigated by statistical techniques for 24 monitoring wells located in an unconfined coastal aquifer in Sfax (Tunisia) for a time period from 1997 to 2006. Firstly, a geostatistical study is performed to characterize the temporal behaviors of data sets in terms of variograms and to make predictions about the value of the groundwater level at unsampled times. Secondly, multivariate statistical methods, i.e., principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) of time series of groundwater levels are used to classify groundwater hydrographs regard to identical fluctuation pattern. Three groundwater groups (A, B, and C) were identified. In group “A,” water level decreases continuously throughout the study periods with rapid annual cyclic variation, whereas in group “B,” the water level contains much less high-frequency variation. The wells of group “C” represents a steady and gradual increase of groundwater levels caused by the aquifer artificial recharge. Furthermore, a cross-correlation analysis is used to investigate the aquifer response to local rainfall and temperature records. The result revealed that the temperature is more affecting the variation of the groundwater level of group A wells than the rainfall. However, the second and the third groups are less affected by rainfall or temperature.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aflatooni, M., & Mardaneh, M. (2011). Time series analysis of groundwater table fluctuations due to temperature and rainfall change in Shiraz plain. International Journal of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, 3(9), 176–188.
Ahmadi, S. H., & Sedghamiz, A. (2007). Geostatistical analysis of spatial and temporal variations of groundwater level. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 129, 277–294.
Alvera-Azcarate, A., Barth, A., Beckers, J. M., & Weisberg, R. H. (2007). Multivariate reconstruction of missing data in sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, and wind satellite fields. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, C03008. doi:10.1029/2006JC003660.
Arslan, H. (2012). Application of multivariate statistical techniques in the assessment of groundwater quality in seawater intrusion area in Bafra Plain, Turkey. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 185, 2439–2452.
Ataie-Ashtiani, B., Volker, R. E., & Lockington, D. A. (1999). Tidal effects on sea water intrusion in unconfined aquifers. Journal of Hydrology, 216, 17–31.
Barabás, N., & Goovaerts, P. (2004). Comparison of geostatistical algorithms for completing groundwater monitoring well times series using data of a nearby river. geoENV IV — Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, 13, 199–210.
Ben Marzouk, M. (2005). The 2005 state of the exploitation of unconfined and confined aquifer in the Sfax Basin (in French). Report Commissariat Régional de Développement Agricole Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia, 11 pp.
Bennett, R. J., Haining, R. P., & Griffith, D. A. (1984). The problem of missing data on spatial surfaces. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 74(1), 1984.
Ben-Zvi, M., & Keslers, S. (1986). Spatial approach to estimation of missing data. Journal of Hydrology, 88, 69–78.
Bouri, S., Abida, H., & Khanfir, H. (2008). Impacts of wastewater irrigation in arid and semi arid regions: case of Sidi Abid region, Tunisia. Environmental Geology, 53, 1421–1432.
Buttafuoco, G., Castrignano, A., Busoni, A. C., & Dimase, E. (2005). Studying the spatial structure evolution of soil water content using multivariate geostatistics. Journal of Hydrology, 311, 202–218.
Chen, Z., Grasby, S., & Osadetz, K. G. (2002). Predicting average annual groundwater levels from climatic variables: an empirical model. Journal of Hydrology, 260, 102–117.
Chen, Z., Grasby, S., & Osadetz, K. G. (2004). Relation between climate variability and groundwater levels in the upper carbonate aquifer, southern Manitoba, Canada. Journal of Hydrology, 290, 43–62.
Cheng, S. J., Hsieh, H. H., & Wang, Y. M. (2007). Geostatistical interpolation of space–time rainfall on Tamshui River basin, Taiwan. Hydrological Processes, 21, 3136–3145.
Chiles, J. P., & Delfiner, P. (1999). Geostatistics: Modeling spatial uncertainty. USA: Wiley.
Cornacchiulo, D., & Bagtzoglou, C. (2004). Geostatistical reconstruction of gaps in near-surface electrical resistivity data. Vadose Zone Journal, 3, 1215–1229.
Dahech, S., & Beltrando, G. (2012). Observed temperature evolution in the City of Sfax (Middle Eastern Tunisia) for the period 1950–2007. Climatic Change, 114, 689–706.
Dowdall, M., Lind, B., Gerland, S., & Rudjord, A. (2003). Geostatistical analysis as applied to two environmental radiometric time series. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 83, 1–16.
Emery, X. (2002). Géostatistique linéaire. Paris: Ecole des Mines de Paris.
Ferguson, G., & St. George, S. (2003). Historical and estimated ground water levels near Winnipeg, Canada, and their sensitivity to climatic variability. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 39(5), 1249–1259.
Gangopadhyay, S., Ashim, D. G., & Nachabe, M. H. (2001). Evaluation of ground water monitoring network by principal component analysis. Groundwater, 39, 181–191.
Geovariance. (2010). Isatis 10.0 meet your energy challenges: improvements and new features. Geovariances, Avon Cedex, France, 14 pp.
Hanson, R. T., Newhouse, M. W., & Dettinger, M. D. (2004). A methodology to asess relations between climatic variability and variations in hydrologic time series in the southwestern United States. Journal of Hydrology, 287, 252–269.
Holawe, F., & Dutter, R. (1999). Geostatistical study of precipitation series in Austria: time and space. Journal of Hydrology, 219, 70–82.
Hwa-Lung, Y., & Hone-Jay, C. (2012). Recharge signal identification based on groundwater level observations. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 184, 5971–5982.
Isaaks, E. H., & Srivastava, R. M. (1989). An introduction to applied geostatistics. London: Oxford University Press (561 pages).
Jenkins, G. M., & Watts, D. G. (1968). Spectral analysis and its application. San Francisco: Holden-day.
Kaiser, H. F. (1974). Index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39, 31–36.
Kitanidis, P. K. (1996). Introduction to geostatistics: Applications to hydrogeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kumar, D., & Ahmed, S. (2008). Reconstruction of water level time series in an aquifer using geostatistical technique. In Groundwater dynamics in hard rock aquifers (pp. 191–200). Berlin: Springer.
Larocque, M., Mangin, A., Razack, M., & Banton, O. (1998). Contribution of correlation and spectral analyses to the regional study of a large karst aquifer (Charente, France). Journal of Hydrology, 205, 217–231.
Lee, J. Y., & Lee, K. K. (2000). Use of hydrologic time series data for identification of recharge mechanism in a fractured bedrock aquifer system. Journal of Hydrology, 229, 190–201.
Lee, J. Y., Choi, M. J., Kim, Y. Y., & Lee, K. K. (2005). Evaluation of hydrologic data obtained from a local groundwater monitoring network in a metropolitan city, Korea. Hydrological Processes, 19, 2525–2537.
Lee, L. J. E., Lawrence, D. S. L., & Price, M. (2006). Analysis of water-level response to rainfall and implications for recharge pathways in the Chalk aquifer, SE England. Journal of Hydrology, 330, 604–620.
Lee, J., Kim, J. H., Kim, H. M., & Chang, H. W. (2007). Statistical approach to determine the salinized ground water flow path and hydrogeochemical features around the underground LPG cavern, Korea. Hydrological Processes, 21, 3615–3626.
Lischeid, G., Natkhin, M., Steidl, J., Dietrich, O., Dannowski, R., & Merz, C. (2010). Assessing coupling between lakes and layered aquifers in a complex Pleistocene landscape based on water level dynamics. Advances in Water Resources, 33, 1331–1339.
Liu, L., Chen, X., Xu, G., & Shu, L. (2011). Use of hydrologic time-series data for identification of hydrodynamic function and behavior in a karstic water system in China. Hydrogeology Journal, 19, 1577–1585.
Longuevergne, L., Florsch, N., & Elsass, P. (2007). Extracting coherent regional information from local measurements with Karhunen–Loeve transform: case study of an alluvial aquifer (Rhine valley, France and Germany). Water Resources Research, 43, W04430. doi:10.1029/2006WR005000.
Marche, A., Lastennet, R., Rodiere, B., El Oifi, B., & Ochs, M. (2006). Impact of water table variations on sewer networks. IAEG, 74, 1–9.
Maréchal, C., Sarma, M. P., Ahmed, S., & Lachassagne, P. (2002). Establishment of earth tides effect on water level fluctuations in an unconfined hard rock aquifer using spectral analysis. Current Science, 83, 61–64.
Mariethoz, G., & Renard, P. (2010). Reconstruction of incomplete data sets or images using direct sampling. Mathematical Geosciences, 42, 245–268.
Mohammadi, Z., & Field, M. (2009). On the temporal behavior of karst aquifers, Zagros regions, Iran: a geostatistical approach. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 71(3), 210–226.
Moon, S. K., Woo, N. C., & Lee, K. S. (2004). Statistical analysis of hydrographs and water-table fluctuation to estimate groundwater recharge. Journal of Hydrology, 292, 198–209.
Moustadraf, J., Razack, M., & Sinan, M. (2008). Evaluation of the impacts of climate changes on the coastal Chaouia aquifer, Morocco, using numerical modeling. Hydrogeology Journal, 16, 1411–1426.
Nayak, C. P., Satyajirao, Y. R., & Sudheer, K. P. (2006). Groundwater level forecasting in a shallow aquifer using artificial neural network approach. Water Resources Management, 20, 77–90.
Padilla, A., & Pulido-Bosch, A. (1995). Study of hydrographs of karstic aquifers by means of correlation and cross-spectral analysis. Journal of Hydrology, 186, 73–89.
Perez-Valdivia, C., & Sauchyn, D. (2011). Tree-ring reconstruction of groundwater levels in Alberta, Canada: long term hydroclimatic variability. Dendrochronologia, 29, 41–47.
Polemio, M., & Casarano, D. (2008). Climate change, drought and groundwater availability in southern Italy. Geological Society Special Publications, 288, 39–51.
Rajmohan, N., Al-Futaisi, A., & Jamrah, A. (2007). Evaluation of long-term groundwater level data in regular monitoring wells, Barka, Sultanate of Oman. Hydrological Processes, 21, 3367–3379.
Reghunath, R., Sreedhara Murthy, T. R., & Raghavan, B. R. (2005). Time series analysis to monitor and assess water resources: a moving average approach. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 109, 65–72.
Rouhani, S., & Myers, D. E. (1990). Problems in space-time kriging of geohydrological data. Mathematical Geology, 22, 611–624.
Rouhani, S., & Wackernagel, H. (1990). Multivariate geostatistical approach to space-time data analysis. Water Resources Research, 26, 585–591.
Toews, M. W., & Allen, D. M. (2009). Simulated response of groundwater to predicted recharge in a semi-arid region using a scenario of modelled climate change. Environmental Research Letter, 4(3), 035003. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/3/035003.
Trabelsi, R., Zairi, M., & Ben Dhia, H. (2007). Groundwater salinization of the Sfax superficiel aquifer, Tunisia. Hydrogeology Journal, 15, 1341–1355.
Triki, I., Zairi, M., & Ben Dhia, H. (2012). A geostatistical approach for groundwater head monitoring network optimisation: case of the Sfax superficial aquifer (Tunisia). Water and Environment Journal, 27, 362–372.
Venencio, M. D. V., & García, N. O. (2011). Interannual variability and predictability of water table levels at Santa Fe Province (Argentina) within the climatic change context. Journal of Hydrology, 409, 62–70.
Winter, T. C., Mallory, S. E., Allen, T. R., & Rosenberry, D. O. (2000). The use of principal component analysis for interpreting ground water hydrographs. Groundwater, 38(2), 234–246.
Wu, M. L., Wang, Y. S., Sun, C. C., Wang, H., Dong, J. D., Yin, J. P., & Han, S. H. (2010). Identification of coastal water quality by statistical analysis methods in Daya Bay, South China Sea. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 60(6), 852–860.
Zhou, F., Liu, Y., & Guo, H. (2007). Application of multivariate statistical methods to water quality assessment of the watercourses in Northwestern New Territories, Hong Kong. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 132, 1–13.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Triki, I., Trabelsi, N., Hentati, I. et al. Groundwater levels time series sensitivity to pluviometry and air temperature: a geostatistical approach to Sfax region, Tunisia. Environ Monit Assess 186, 1593–1608 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-013-3477-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-013-3477-8