User Interface for Ground-Water Modeling: ArcView Extension

Numerical simulation for ground-water modeling often involves handling large input and output data sets. A geographic information system (GIS) provides an integrated platform to manage, analyze, and display disparate data and can greatly facilitate modeling efforts in data compilation, model calibration, and display of model parameters and results. Furthermore, GIS can be used to generate information for decision making through spatial overlay and processing of model results. ArcView is the most widely used Windows-based GIS software that provides a robust user-friendly interface to facilitate data handling and display. An extension is an add-on program to ArcView that provides additional specialized functions. An ArcView interface for the ground-water flow and transport models MODFLOW and MT3D was built as an extension for facilitating modeling. The extension includes preprocessing of spatially distributed (point, line, and polygon) data for model input and postprocessing of model output. An object database is used for linking user dialogs and model input files. The ArcView interface utilizes the capabilities of the 3D Analyst extension. Models can be automatically calibrated through the ArcView interface by external linking to such programs as PEST. The efficient pre- and postprocessing capabilities and calibration link were demonstrated for ground-water modeling in southwest Kansas.