California’s Salinas Valley is one of the most productive agricultural basins in the world due to the fertile valley soil, temperate climate, and availability of water for irrigation. In the Salinas Valley, many people, industries, and ecosystems depend directly or indirectly on groundwater. Water demands and met by conjunctive use, which is the coordinated use of surface water and groundwater to meet the demand for irrigation and public water supply. Due to the high cost of groundwater development projects, it is important to understand how these projects perform to increase storage, mitigate seawater intrusion, provide flood control, and maintain healthy riparian ecosystems. The models from this study can be used to explore these [...]
Summary
California’s Salinas Valley is one of the most productive agricultural basins in the world due to the fertile valley soil, temperate climate, and availability of water for irrigation. In the Salinas Valley, many people, industries, and ecosystems depend directly or indirectly on groundwater. Water demands and met by conjunctive use, which is the coordinated use of surface water and groundwater to meet the demand for irrigation and public water supply. Due to the high cost of groundwater development projects, it is important to understand how these projects perform to increase storage, mitigate seawater intrusion, provide flood control, and maintain healthy riparian ecosystems. The models from this study can be used to explore these questions and evaluate historical and potential future stresses on water resources to support long-term planning and decision-making toward sustainable water resource management in the basin. For the evaluation of the Salinas Valley hydrology and water resource availability, a suite of quantitative geologic and hydrologic modeling tools were developed to simulate the Salinas Valley System of surface and groundwater hydrology, agricultural, and reservoir operations — the Salinas Valley System Model. The Salinas Valley System Model was used to develop an integrated modeling framework to simulate surface-water and groundwater movement including interactions and feedback between different water sources across the basin and is comprised of the Salinas Valley Geological Framework (SVGF) and the Salinas Valley Hydrologic System. SVGF provides data describing the surface geology and elevations that are used to define the topology of the stream network and provides the geologic framework for the aquifers within the Salinas Valley. The Salinas Valley Hydrologic System includes the Salinas Valley Regional Climate and the Salinas Valley Hydrologic Models. The Salinas Valley Hydrologic Models include the Salinas River Surface Water Network, the Salinas Valley Watershed Model (SVWM), and the Lower Salinas Valley Hydrologic Models. SVWM provides monthly ungaged flows from the watershed surrounding the Salinas River Valley to the Lower Salinas Hydrologic Models for the period from October 1, 1967 to September 30, 2018. The SVWM was built using the Hydrologic Simulation Program Fortran (HSPF). The Lower Salinas Valley Hydrologic Models include the Salinas Valley Operational Model (SVOM) and the Salinas Valley Integrated Model (SVIHM). The SVIHM and SVOM were developed to simulate and analyze conjunctive use and changes in the use and movement of water throughout the landscape, surface-water networks and aquifers, as well as changes in groundwater storage and related seawater intrusion in different hydrologic regions of Salinas Valley, California.
