Software tool for groundwater budgeting
Posted on October 22, 2007 | Filed Under Announcements, Software
Mr. R.V. Rama Mohan of Center for World Solidarity has come up with freeware (an Excel spreadsheet) to calculate the groundwater extraction vs. recharge in an area. He has made the software available to the public and is soliciting feedback. Comments may be sent to rvrm2@yahoo.com and we would also be interested in hearing the same at portal@arghyam.org
Click here to view the spreadsheet (rightclick to download the spreadsheet)
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7 Responses to “Software tool for groundwater budgeting”
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Thank you for seeking my comments on the free software developed by Rama Mohan to estimate the village-level stage of ground development by estimating recharge by the groundwater fluctuation method and discharge by actual measurement. The software developed is excellent. There is no doubt that there are some limitations. This method is advocated even by the Central Ground Water Board and used by developed countries in the absence of more accurate data.
Although annual rainfall and number of wells are incorporated in the software, they are not actually used for generating the output. The programme works even when the annual rainfall is made zero and the number of functioning wells is as low as 1. The programme however doesn’t work when the number of functioning wells is zero.
The software cannot be now used in villages where there is irrigated land under surface water. In course of time, it can be developed to incorporate such conditions.
If there are slight errors in the specific yield used and depth to water levels measured in the observation wells,
there can be serious discrepancies. Despite that, the programme is quite useful. The programme helps the farmers to know how economic use of irrigation water through SRI paddy etc. can help most farmers to get maximum benefit despite limited groundwater availability. You may invite Rama Mohan to introduce his software in the Discussion Forum. Let the readers comment on it.
Dr. Jagadiswara Rao
Dear sir, thanks for updating. would like to interact with u .Is there a software for yield testing?
please reply
Shankar
Dear Ram Mohan,
Thenk you so much that you have developed a wonderful software, which is useful in calculation of water balance study. This is very useful for me and am using this for my study. I will appreciate is you send some water related software for groundwater recharge projects / watershed development projects.
R.Ramappa
Dear Ram Mohan
Thank you for inviting the comments on GW budget The spread sheet can be used for any layman, but technically speaking there are important parameters to be taken into consideration.
1. The forest cover area barren area and tree root zone has to be incorporated in the sheet because these parameters directly proportionate to the ground water recharge
2. The soil thickness and soil type specific retention of the soil, and soil cover in space is also taken into consideration.
3. The rainy days are to calculated rather than normal rain fall because the rainy days are indirectly proportion to surface flow, where there is storm rain gives flood and tremendous surface flow occurs and less recharge (except through ponds and tanks).
4. The Observation wells should be distributed evenly i.e all fracture zones, water logging area etc.
There fore if you speak technically groundwater recharge the above parametes are to be considered. As we suggest the water balance in hydrologica cycle, is normative not actual figures this is will oscillate according the Ago-climatic condition soil moisture retention , surface cover ( forest or barren ) and rainy days ( Not Normal Rainfall ).
So the GW budgeting is debating subject like unknown things are shown as known things ( Like Ground water reservoir in hard rock ) this has to kept in international or national level debate.
Narasimha Rao R.s
Dear Sir:
I am professor of the subject of Groundwater in Bolivia, and I will use your model to do some exercises with my students. Although the model will need some assumptions because the different geographic context, I think it will be very useful for analyzing and discussing outcomes.
I will be in touch in order to give some comments about the model. Thank you very much.
Alfredo Duran
Dear Dr Mohan,
Thanks very much for this software. We here in South Darfur Sudan shall analyse this software for local conditions and shall rivert to you for more informations.
Dear Mr Mohan,
I am a Hydrogeologist working with an NGO called AFPRO having its head office at Delhi. We have Groundwater development & management as component of one of our core focal area water & sanitation In this respect I highly appreciate the effort put in developing this software. This could be an excellent tool for the water balance analysis projects running in different parts of India. Since the free software is password protected i would appreciate if i get the password so that i may edit it for using in water budgeting projects when i get to work on them.
Thanks & Regards
Sanjeev Raj