Marshall Sarah Kathleen, Peeters Luk J M, Batelaan Okke, Noorduijn Saskia, Velterop Tanah
CSIRO Environment Private Bag 2, Glen Osmond, South Australia, 5064, Australia.
National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT), College of Science & Engineering, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, Australia.
Ground Water. 2025 Jan-Feb;63(1):52-67. doi: 10.1111/gwat.13431. Epub 2024 Jul 18.
Water-table maps are fundamental to hydrogeological studies and a manual, hand-drawn method is still commonly used to produce them. Despite this, the accuracy and variability of such maps have received little attention in international literature. In a unique experiment, 63 groundwater professionals drew water-table equipotential contours based on the same dataset of point measurements and were asked to infer flow directions and predict groundwater elevations at predefined locations. The root mean squared error (RMSE) for the average map calibration data was 10.5 m, which is accuracy comparable to numerical groundwater models. This study confirmed that to produce hand-drawn water-table maps, practitioners seek to not only fit the spatial data, but also to conform to their own cognitive model of hydrogeological concepts and processes. The calibration accuracy increased with experience; from a RMSE of 13.3 m for practitioners with 0-3 years of experience to a RMSE of 9.2 m for those with four or more years. Despite considerable variability in the style of the hand-drawn water-table maps, the maps were consistent in their representation of the dominant regional groundwater flow directions. There was less consensus, however, in predicting the direction of surface water-groundwater interaction for a stream reach. Hand-drawn water-table mapping remains useful and valid, especially as a starting point for hydrogeological conceptualization, yet further work is required to resolve issues around transparency, repeatability, and reproducibility.
潜水位图是水文地质研究的基础，目前仍普遍采用手工绘制的方法来制作。尽管如此，此类地图的准确性和变异性在国际文献中很少受到关注。在一项独特的实验中，63名地下水专业人员根据相同的点测量数据集绘制潜水位等势线，并被要求推断水流方向并预测预定义位置的地下水位。平均地图校准数据的均方根误差（RMSE）为10.5米，这与数值地下水模型的准确性相当。这项研究证实，在绘制手工潜水位图时，从业者不仅试图拟合空间数据，还试图符合他们自己对水文地质概念和过程的认知模型。校准精度随着经验的增加而提高；经验为0至3年的从业者的RMSE为13.3米，而经验为四年或以上的从业者的RMSE为9.2米。尽管手工绘制的潜水位图在风格上存在很大差异，但这些地图在主导区域地下水流向的表示上是一致的。然而，在预测河段地表水与地下水相互作用的方向上，共识较少。手工绘制潜水位图仍然有用且有效，特别是作为水文地质概念化的起点，但仍需要进一步开展工作来解决透明度、可重复性和再现性等问题。
