Residence time distribution (RTD) is a critically important characteristic of groundwater flow systems; however, it cannot be measured directly. RTD can be inferred from tracer data with analytical models (few parameters) or with numerical models (many parameters). The second approach permits more variation in system properties but is used less frequently than the first because large-scale numerical models can be resource intensive. With the data and computer codes in this data release users can (1) reconstruct and run 115 General Simulation Models (GSMs) of groundwater flow, (2) calculate groundwater age metrics at selected GSM cells, (3) train a boosted regression tree model using the provided data, (4) predict...
Widespread nitrate contamination of groundwater in agricultural areas poses a major challenge to sustainable water resources. Efficient analysis of nitrate fluxes across large regions also remains difficult. This study introduces a method of characterizing nitrate transport processes continuously across regional unsaturated zones and groundwater based on surrogate, machine-learning metamodels of an N flux process-based model. The metamodels used boosted regression trees (BRTs) to relate mappable variables to parameters and outputs of a “vertical flux method” (VFM) applied in the Fox-Wolf-Peshtigo (FWP) area in Wisconsin. In this context, the metamodels are upscaling the VFM results throughout the region, and the...