Superwell: Integrating Groundwater Cost and Supply into Multisector Dynamics
Escalating water demands for agriculture, energy, industry, and domestic uses are often buffered by groundwater when surface water availability is limited or highly variable. A better understanding of the future role of groundwater in meeting sectoral demands requires an integrated hydro-economic evaluation of its cost and availability. Yet substantial gaps remain in our knowledge and modeling capabilities related to groundwater availability, feasible locations for extraction, extractable volumes, and associated extraction costs, which are essential for large-scale analyses of integrated human-water systems scenarios, particularly at the global scale. To address that, we have developed a global physics-based hydro-economic model for groundwater cost and supply analysis called Superwell. The model generates grid cell-level estimates of extractable volumes, infrastructure requirements, and calculates capital, maintenance, and energy costs of pumping groundwater. Available groundwater volume is estimated from geo-processed aquifer properties on a 0.5° grid scale, including depth to groundwater, aquifer thickness, WHYMap aquifer classes, porosity and permeability, that also serve as gridded inputs to Superwell. Unit costs of pumping groundwater (total volume pumped divided by total cost of pumping) help derive groundwater resource cost-supply curves that can be used within multisector dynamics (MSD) models. The cost curves inform MSD models, such as Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM), or integrated surface-groundwater models (e.g., mosart-wm-abm, Tethys) about groundwater’s availability and cost of extraction on a gridded resolution, with a built-in flexibility to aggregate to basin, regional or global scales. MSD models use cost curves to determine competition with alternative water sources required by energy, land, and technological systems, or to inform farmer decisions regarding irrigation and cropping choices. This unlocks a possibility to establish and evaluate interactions of groundwater within energy-water-land systems, enabling exploration of multisector dynamics within integrated human-earth systems.