Hydrosphere Resource Consultants

Projects by Discipline / Water Resources Engineering

Denver Basin Regional Groundwater Model, South Metro Water Supply Study, Colorado

As part of a water supply study of the Denver South Metro area, a consortium of private water utilities and public water providers contracted with Hydrosphere to develop a regional Denver Basin groundwater model to help identify long-term water supply alternatives. The focus of this investigation is to provide a better understanding of the capability of the Denver Basin aquifers to provide water for long-term future water demands as either a sole source or combined with surface water sources in conjunctive use scenarios.

Hydrosphere's work emphasizes a scalable modeling effort. Regional groundwater modeling reflecting large-scale groundwater conditions is interfaced with local groundwater models around individual well fields. Rather than starting from scratch, Hydrosphere utilizes the existing Colorado SEO SB-74 Denver Basin MODFLOW model as the foundation for their regional modeling effort. The linkage to local (well and well-field) models is accomplished by using results of the regional model to develop boundary conditions for the detailed local models. The local models provide estimates of well yields and well-field development scenarios that will be required as water levels decline over the next several decades.

 

Hydrosphere's modeling effort includes:

  • Assessing the need for re-discretization of the SEO SB-74 model to better account for the likely effects of fine-grained interbeds within the Denver Basin aquifers
  • Incorporating new data into the SEO SB-74 model
  • Screening the new data against existing SEO SB-74 model parameterization to assess the need for re-calibration
  • Application of local (well and well-field) models to project localized drawdowns
  • Implementation of various demand scenarios to bracket the likely economic life of the Denver Basin aquifers under various water resource management alternatives