IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v513y2026ics0304380025004429.html

From local to regional: Enhancing groundwater management with simulation models like MODFLOW and geospatial technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Shah, Rameez A
  • Shafi, Aurooj
  • Andrabi, SMA
  • Shah, Shaziya M
  • Hassan, Shahnawaz
  • Zargar, Aufaq Ahmad

Abstract

With increasing dependence on groundwater due to deteriorating surface water quality, effective groundwater management has become critically important. This paper provides a comprehensive review of advancements in groundwater modeling with a primary focus on MODFLOW and its derivatives. MODFLOW, developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, has evolved into a modular and versatile modeling framework. Advanced versions such as MODFLOW-NWT, MODFLOW-USG, and MODFLOW-LGR have extended the model’s ability to simulate complex hydrogeological conditions, including unconfined aquifers, irregular boundaries, and refined local grids. The integration of MODFLOW with graphical user interfaces like Visual MODFLOW and Groundwater Modelling System (GMS), and the introduction of MODFLOW 6, have improved model usability and simulation capabilities. Furthermore, the coupling of MODFLOW with other simulation tools like SEAWAT, HYDRUS, FEFLOW, and MIKE SHE supports multi-process modeling involving groundwater flow, solute transport, and surface water interactions. This paper also explores the integration of remote sensing and GIS technologies, which enhance spatial data resolution and compensate for data limitations, particularly in data-scarce regions such as the Himalayan basin. Case studies demonstrate how these integrated modeling tools are applied in groundwater flow analysis, recharge estimation, contaminant transport, and climate impact assessments. These applications highlight the growing role of MODFLOW-based tools in supporting sustainable water resource management. The review underscores the need for ongoing innovation in groundwater modeling, particularly through the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud-based platforms, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These tools offer promising avenues for enhancing predictive accuracy and supporting more informed, real-time decision-making. Ultimately, this paper aims to assist researchers, planners, and policymakers in advancing integrated and sustainable groundwater management strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Shah, Rameez A & Shafi, Aurooj & Andrabi, SMA & Shah, Shaziya M & Hassan, Shahnawaz & Zargar, Aufaq Ahmad, 2026. "From local to regional: Enhancing groundwater management with simulation models like MODFLOW and geospatial technologies," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 513(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:513:y:2026:i:c:s0304380025004429
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2025.111456
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380025004429
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2025.111456?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Ireson & C. Makropoulos & C. Maksimovic, 2006. "Water Resources Modelling under Data Scarcity: Coupling MIKE BASIN and ASM Groundwater Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 20(4), pages 567-590, August.
    2. Xu Xu & Guanhua Huang & Zhongyi Qu & Luis Pereira, 2011. "Using MODFLOW and GIS to Assess Changes in Groundwater Dynamics in Response to Water Saving Measures in Irrigation Districts of the Upper Yellow River Basin," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(8), pages 2035-2059, June.
    3. Chowdary, V. M. & Rao, N. H. & Sarma, P. B. S., 2003. "GIS-based decision support system for groundwater assessment in large irrigation project areas," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 229-252, October.
    4. Rossetto, Rudy & De Filippis, Giovanna & Triana, Federico & Ghetta, Matteo & Borsi, Iacopo & Schmid, Wolfgang, 2019. "Software tools for management of conjunctive use of surface- and ground-water in the rural environment: integration of the Farm Process and the Crop Growth Module in the FREEWAT platform," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Jasmina Defterdarović & Lana Filipović & Filip Kranjčec & Gabrijel Ondrašek & Diana Kikić & Alen Novosel & Ivan Mustać & Vedran Krevh & Ivan Magdić & Vedran Rubinić & Igor Bogunović & Ivan Dugan & Kre, 2021. "Determination of Soil Hydraulic Parameters and Evaluation of Water Dynamics and Nitrate Leaching in the Unsaturated Layered Zone: A Modeling Case Study in Central Croatia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-20, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Singh, Ajay, 2016. "Managing the water resources problems of irrigated agriculture through geospatial techniques: An overview," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 2-10.
    2. Wu, Zhangsheng & Li, Yue & Wang, Rong & Xu, Xu & Ren, Dongyang & Huang, Quanzhong & Xiong, Yunwu & Huang, Guanhua, 2023. "Evaluation of irrigation water saving and salinity control practices of maize and sunflower in the upper Yellow River basin with an agro-hydrological model based method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    3. Vilim Filipović & Dragutin Petošić & Ivan Mustać & Igor Bogunović & Hailong He & Lana Filipović, 2025. "Dynamic Modeling of Soil Water Dynamics and Nitrogen Species Transport with Multi-Crop Rotations Under Variable-Saturated Conditions," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-24, February.
    4. Xiaojing Ni & Prem B. Parajuli & Ying Ouyang, 2020. "Assessing Agriculture Conservation Practice Impacts on Groundwater Levels at Watershed Scale," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(4), pages 1553-1566, March.
    5. Fakhri Manghi & Dennis Williams & Jack Safely & Moshrik Hamdi, 2012. "Groundwater Flow Modeling of the Arlington Basin to Evaluate Management Strategies for Expansion of the Arlington Desalter Water Production," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(1), pages 21-41, January.
    6. Weibin Zhang & Xiaochun Zha & Jiaxing Li & Wei Liang & Yugai Ma & Dongmei Fan & Sha Li, 2014. "Spatiotemporal Change of Blue Water and Green Water Resources in the Headwater of Yellow River Basin, China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(13), pages 4715-4732, October.
    7. Wang, Rong & Huang, Guanhua & Xu, Xu & Ren, Dongyang & Gou, Jiachao & Wu, Zhangsheng, 2022. "Significant differences in agro-hydrological processes and water productivity between canal- and well-irrigated areas in an arid region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    8. Dedi Liu & Shenglian Guo & Pan Liu & Hui Zou & Xingjun Hong, 2019. "Rational Function Method for Allocating Water Resources in the Coupled Natural-Human Systems," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(1), pages 57-73, January.
    9. Qian Zhang & Xiujuan Liang & Zhang Fang & Tao Jiang & Yubo Wang & Lei Wang, 2016. "Urban water resources allocation and shortage risk mapping with support vector machine method," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 81(2), pages 1209-1228, March.
    10. Xu, Xu & Huang, Guanhua & Qu, Zhongyi & Pereira, Luis S., 2010. "Assessing the groundwater dynamics and impacts of water saving in the Hetao Irrigation District, Yellow River basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 301-313, December.
    11. Peragón, Juan M. & Pérez-Latorre, Francisco J. & Delgado, Antonio & Tóth, Tibor, 2018. "Best management irrigation practices assessed by a GIS-based decision tool for reducing salinization risks in olive orchards," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 33-41.
    12. Luis Santos Pereira, 2017. "Water, Agriculture and Food: Challenges and Issues," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(10), pages 2985-2999, August.
    13. Yu Fan & Haorui Chen & Zhanyi Gao & Benyan Fang & Xiangkun Liu, 2023. "A Model Coupling Water Resource Allocation and Canal Optimization for Water Distribution," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 37(3), pages 1341-1365, February.
    14. V. Alarcon & D. Johnson & W. McAnally & J. Zwaag & D. Irby & J. Cartwright, 2014. "Nested Hydrodynamic Modeling of a Coastal River Applying Dynamic-Coupling," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(10), pages 3227-3240, August.
    15. Liu, Meihan & Paredes, Paula & Shi, Haibin & Ramos, Tiago B. & Dou, Xu & Dai, Liping & Pereira, Luis S., 2022. "Impacts of a shallow saline water table on maize evapotranspiration and groundwater contribution using static water table lysimeters and the dual Kc water balance model SIMDualKc," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    16. K. Raneesh & Santosh Thampi, 2013. "A Simple Semi-distributed Hydrologic Model to Estimate Groundwater Recharge in a Humid Tropical Basin," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(5), pages 1517-1532, March.
    17. Ajay Singh & Sudhindra Panda, 2013. "Optimization and Simulation Modelling for Managing the Problems of Water Resources," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(9), pages 3421-3431, July.
    18. Xue, Jingyuan & Guan, Huade & Huo, Zailin & Wang, Fengxin & Huang, Guanhua & Boll, Jan, 2017. "Water saving practices enhance regional efficiency of water consumption and water productivity in an arid agricultural area with shallow groundwater," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 78-89.
    19. Ying Li & Dong-Zi Pan, 2021. "Barrier Longevity of NaCl-Laden Soil against Subterranean Termites in an Earth Embankment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-16, December.
    20. Li, Jiang & Mao, Xiaomin & Li, Mo, 2017. "Modeling hydrological processes in oasis of Heihe River Basin by landscape unit-based conceptual models integrated with FEFLOW and GIS," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 338-351.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:513:y:2026:i:c:s0304380025004429. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.