Systems thinking applied to conceptual urban groundwater model development

Urban groundwater is an often overlooked element of the wider urban water system. Complex interactions between urban groundwater and surface water may be obscured by urban infrastructure and its influence on groundwater flow. Urban groundwater models can be developed to jointly account for groundwater-surface water processes and urban infrastructure. Therefore, they can be used to simulate potential groundwater flooding, and help understand the role of groundwater in urban resilience to climate change. Attempting to capture the inherent complexity of the built environment within a model, however, may lead to increasing model uncertainty. We argue that robust urban groundwater modelling depends on a strong conceptual understanding of the groundwater system, which can lead to achieving the goal of characterising groundwater flooding.

The aim of this study is to present a conceptual groundwater model of the Ouseburn watershed in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The industrial heritage of the watershed, as well as the residual effects of coal mining within the urban fabric present unique challenges in conceptual groundwater model design. These challenges are further increased by the hydrogeological properties of the watershed. To this end, we developed an urban conceptual model to identify various components that synthesise the groundwater system, as well as the interactions between them.  From our conceptual model, we aim to develop a groundwater flow model that is able to capture important system interactions, thus resulting in a robust model framework to understand groundwater flooding controls.