Testing the quantification of groundwater-dependent ecosystem services enhanced through managed aquifer recharge via the InVEST model suite

We assess the applicability of the InVEST model suite to quantify the benefits of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) for groundwater-dependent ecosystem services (GDES). GDES are of high importance for a wide range of human activities and therefore should be assigned substantial value and integrated into sustainable groundwater management planning.

Given the growing need to enforce sustainable groundwater management, a tool that enables the environmental impact assessment of MAR operations—and thus the quantification of MAR impacts on GDES—would be highly beneficial. Such a tool could facilitate and accelerate the integration of MAR’s positive effects on GDES into management and planning processes.

The selected pilot region is located in the pre-alpine foreland in southern Bavaria. This region strongly depends on local GDES, particularly for agricultural and tourism-related purposes. Since 2014, a large-scale flood protection concept with a total retention volume of approximately 7.5 million m³ of floodwater has been under development. In our project Smart-SWS² we have developed a concept to couple flood protection and MAR.

In this study, we apply the InVEST model suite¹ as an evaluation framework to compare different scenarios and their capacity to safeguard regional water resources and associated GDES. The baseline scenario represents conditions prior to the implementation of the flood protection concept, while the other scenarios incorporates the retention basins and the planned MAR systems. For these scenarios, we evaluate the model outputs and the feasibility of quantifying GDES using InVEST.

¹ Natural Capital Project
² Augusting & Baumann, 2024