Optimal contour mapping of groundwater levels using universal kriging - a case study

Universal kriging is applied to the command area of a set of canal irrigation projects in northwestern India to show its applicability for optimal contour mapping of groundwater levels. This command area faces the problem of a rising groundwater table and manifestation of waterlogging over the years at many places. With the use of measured elevations of the water table in September 1990 at 143 observation sites in an area of 4500 km(2), an omni-directional experimental semivariogram was constructed. The concave upward shape of omni-directional experimental semivariogram indicated the non-stationarity of the data and so the need for universal kriging. Directional semivariograms were calculated to find out the direction along which there is least drift. This directional semivariogram was considered as the underlying semivariogram and various theoretical semivariogram models were fitted to it. The drift order was estimated from the cross-validation procedure. The model and drift order finally selected were used to estimate the groundwater levels and corresponding estimation variances at the nodes of a square grid of 2 km x 2 km, and to develop the corresponding contour map.