An efficient, easy-to-use and free GISGroundwater model

An excellentarticle

http://bgs.ac.uk/gisgroundwater/

GISGroundwater is an add-in to ArcGIS that models the depth to groundwater beneath the land surface. For unconfined aquifers — that is, permeable water bearing rocks that are open to the atmosphere — it calculates the elevation of the groundwater table. For aquifers that are confined by overlying impermeable rock, it calculates the elevation of the surface, i.e. the level groundwater will rise to in a borehole.

It allows non-modellers, such as scientists and students, to easily and efficiently develop preliminary groundwater flow models to test understanding within a user-friendly GIS environment.
The tool is based on a mathematical model that simulates groundwater flow but is easy to use. The user provides information about a region using a series of GIS raster layers and shapefiles, which form input to the model. For example, amongst other things, the user defines properties of an aquifer such as how permeable the rock is, where rivers and pumping wells are located, and the amount of rainfall seeping downwards to the water table from the land surface. On running the model, the tool adds a raster layer to the GIS project, which plots the elevation of the groundwater level surface.
BGS GISGroundwater can be used for any purpose free of charge under the Open Government License agreement.