Model of long-term water-table dynamics at Doñana National Park

Application of a statistical water-table model reveals connections between dunes and vegetation at Doñana

“…These results show that the dune aquifer is very sensitive to local precipitation and has its own dynamics, working somewhat independently of the regional aquifer (Vela, 1984;de Castro and Mun˜oz Reinoso, 1997). The r 2 values were higher than those obtained in the previous application of the model (de Castro and Mun˜oz Reinoso, 1997), indicating that the inclusion of the past rainfall factor improves the predicting ability of the regressions.…”

“…The model shows the functional traits of the water-table in the slacks of the moving dunes of Don˜ana. The model seems to reflect natural fluctuations of climatic origin and of short period, without exterior influences, suggesting that the water-table in the Corral Largo slack is not affected by relatively near pumping sites, which seems to be affecting the phreatic levels in other areas of Don˜ana (Suso and Llamas, 1993;de Castro and Mun˜oz Reinoso, 1997;Mun˜oz Reinoso, 2001a).…”

“…To understand water-table behavior and to estimate unknown values of watertable level for periods without records, we have applied a model based on multiple linear regressions of water-table fluctuations (de Castro and Mun˜oz Reinoso, 1997) in the Corral Largo slack. This method is the best for our purposes and this data set, especially because it takes explicitly into account the effect of different easy to measure variables.…”

“…The recharge of regional aquifer depends on precipitation (IGME, 1983), especially in the dune aquifer. When the period without rains is longer, the descent of the water-table level is larger (de Castro and Mun˜oz Reinoso, 1997). Thus, we have considered the time lapse as an independent variable.…”

Model for a dune field with an exposed water table

“…The dynamics of the water table in some aeolian sand systems is connected with seasonal variations in climate and rainfall , and has been modeled by many different authors (de Castro Ochoa and Muñoz-Reinoso, 1997; Kocurek et al, 2001). However, quantitatively little is known about dune field morphodynamics in the presence of a varying groundwater level.…”