Over the last 10 years there has been a unique regulator-led programme involving extensive development of regional groundwater models across England and Wales for water resources purposes by the Environment Agency for England and Wales. Eight regionally managed programmes are underpinned by a framework, which has allowed a coordinated national approach. The main uses of the models are for catchment abstraction management and licensing. Models have also assisted in monitoring network design, investigating groundwater quality and implementing groundwater source protection zones. A five-yearly review of the programmes recognized the importance of benefit realization and stakeholder involvement as well as technical good practice. The programme already delivered provides a solid foundation for supporting the management decisions required in areas such as climate change mitigation and integrated catchment management using appropriate tools at a time of rapid organization change and financial uncertainty.
9The calculation of distributed recharge is necessary to drive numerical groundwater models used to 10 manage and protect groundwater resources, to assess the impact of anthropogenic stresses and 11climate change, and to study the viability of technologies, such as exploiting the heat stored in the 12 ground. A national scale model allows policy-makers and governmental decision-makers to set policy 13 within the correct geographical context. However, many challenges are associated with building 14 large scale models, for example, the representation of processes on coarse grid resolution. This 15 study presents distributed potential recharge values, calculated using the modified EA/FAO recharge 16 algorithm. The model calibration is presented and the simulated potential recharge values and soil 17 moisture deficit values are compared with estimates provided by the Environment Agency and the 18Meteorological Office. Long-term average potential recharge values are very small in the east of the 19 UK but they increase significantly towards the west and north reaching values as high as 8 mm day -1 20 over the hills of Wales and Scotland. While this study highlights the need for further model 21 refinement, the presented results are useful for assessing the potential recharge values at a national 22 scale and for undertaking water resources studies especially in catchments with unconfined/near-23 surface aquifers. 24
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