Assessing distributed groundwater recharge rate using integrated
surface water-groundwater modelling: application to Mihocheon
watershed, South Korea
Il-Moon Chung & Nam-Won Kim & Jeongwoo Lee &
Marios Sophocleous
Abstract A method of estimating groundwater recharge,
based on water-balance components using the SWAT-
MODFLOW model (an integrated surface water-
groundwater model), is described. A multi-reservoir
storage routing module is suggested instead of a single
storage routing module in SWAT; this represents a more
realistic delay in the travel of water through the vadose
zone. By using this module, the parameter related to the
delay time can be optimized by checking the correlation
between simulated recharge and observed groundwater
levels. The final step of this procedure is to compare
simulated groundwater levels as well as the simulated
watershed stream flow with the observed groundwater
levels and watershed stream flow. This method is
applied to the Mihocheon watershed in South Korea
to estimate spatio-temporal groundwater recharge
distribution. The computed annual recharge rate is
compared with the independently estimated recharge
rate using BFLOW. The hydrologic modelling results
show that the annual average recharge rate should be
Received: 5 October 2008 / Accepted: 12 February 2010
Published online: 23 March 2010
* Springer-Verlag 2010
I.-M. Chung ()) : N.-W. Kim : J. Lee
Korea Institute of Construction Technology,
2311 Daehwa-dong, Ilsan-gu, Goyang-si, Gyunggi-do 412-712,
Republic of Korea
e-mail: imchung@kict.re.kr
Tel.: +82-31-9100334
Fax: +82-31-9100251
N. Kim
e-mail: nwkim@kict.re.kr
J. Lee
e-mail: ljw2961@kict.re.kr
M. Sophocleous
Kansas Geological Survey,
The University of Kansas,
1930 Constant Ave, West Campus, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA
e-mail: marios@kgs.ku.edu
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
estimated by a long-term continuous simulation with a
distributed hydrologic modelling technique.
Keywords South Korea . SWAT-MODFLOW .
Recharge . Groundwater/surface-water relations .
Geographic information systems
Introduction
Accurate quantification of recharge rates is imperative to
the proper management and protection of valuable
groundwater resources. Numerous methods have been
used to estimate recharge. These methods produce
estimates over various time and space scales and encom-
pass a wide range of complexity and expense (Healy and
Cook 2002). Information on the different methods is
contained in references such as Simmers (1988, 1997),
Sharma (1989), Lerner et al. (1990), Scanlon et al. (2002),
and de Vries and Simmers (2002).
In water resource investigations, groundwater models
are used to simulate the flow of water in aquifers, and,
when calibrated, may be used to simulate the long-term
behavior of an aquifer under various management
schemes. Without a good estimate of recharge and its
spatio-temporal distribution, these models become unreli-
able. Thus, unless accurate recharge rates are provided, the
impacts of withdrawing groundwater from an aquifer
cannot be properly assessed, and the long-term behavior
of an aquifer under various management schemes cannot
be reliably estimated (Sophocleous 2005).
The various methods of estimating groundwater
recharge (outlined in the next section) based on hydro-
logic lumped parameter concepts has been limited to,
effectively, their usage in groundwater planning and
management. As groundwater recharge rates show
spatial-temporal variability due to climatic conditions, land
use, and hydrogeological heterogeneity, these methods
have limitations in dealing with these characteristics. To
overcome these limitations, a method of estimating
recharge is presented, based on water-balance components,
using a recently-developed methodology linked to an
integrated surface water-groundwater model (Chung et al.
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1
1254
2007; Kim et al. 2008). This method is applied to the
Mihocheon watershed in Korea for a more accurate
estimation of spatio-temporal groundwater recharge.
Existing methods of estimating groundwater
recharge
Based on previous studies on various techniques for
quantifying groundwater recharge (Scanlon et al. 2002;
Sophocleous 2004), the three representative methods are
as follows.
Baseflow method
In watersheds with gaining streams, groundwater recharge
can be estimated from stream hydrograph separation
(Meyboom 1961; Rorabaugh 1964; Rutledge 1997). The
use of baseflow discharge to estimate recharge is based on
a water-budget approach, in which recharge is equated to
discharge. Baseflow discharge, however, is not necessarily
directly equated to recharge because pumpage, evapo-
transpiration, and underflow to deep aquifers may also be
significant. Various approaches are used for hydrograph
separation, including digital filtering (Nathan and McMahon
1990; Arnold et al. 1995) and recession-curve displacement
methods (Rorabaugh 1964). The accuracy of the reported
recharge rates depends on the validity of the various
assumptions.
Lumped conceptual modelling
To accurately model the hydrology of a catchment, a
detailed knowledge of the catchment physical character-
istics and processes is necessary. Often this is not feasible
and it is necessary to simplify parameters by lumping or
spatial averaging. This implies that in the catchment
system, the inputs and responses can be represented
mathematically using only the dimensions of depth and
time. This reduces the parameterization task to simply
using one value for each parameter for the whole catch-
ment (Burke 1995). Also, the lumped models provide a
single recharge estimate for the entire catchment (Kite
1995). Therefore, lumped models are not well suited to
applications with real hydrological systems. For example,
a single average value for recharge or for a safe yield
value for the whole catchment can be inappropriate
because recharge varies so much spatially. More detailed
information is essential for sound planning for the
conservation of groundwater supplies in a catchment.
Therefore, a sensitive hydrological model is needed which
is capable of accommodating the spatial distribution of
surface characteristics. For such studies one must move
towards a more physically based distributed approach.
Such a model, which closely represents the physics
involved in the processes of catchment response, is
inherently superior to a model that is lumped at the
catchment scale (Beven 1985, 1989).
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
Water-table fluctuation method
The water-table fluctuation (WTF) method is based on the
premise that rises in groundwater levels in unconfined
aquifers are caused by recharge water arriving at the water
table. Recharge (R) is calculated as
R ¼ Sy dh=dt ¼ Sy Dh=Dt ð1Þ
where Sy is the specific yield, h is the water-table height,
and t is time. The WTF method has been used in various
studies (Rasmussen and Andreasen 1959; Gerhart 1986;
Sophocleous 1991; Hall and Risser 1993).
The attractiveness of the WTF method lies in its
simplicity and ease of use. The method, however, does
have its limitations as follows (Healy and Cook 2002):
1. The method is best applied to shallow water tables that
display sharp water-level rises and declines.
2. Typically, recharge rates vary substantially within a
basin, owing to differences in elevation, geology, land-
surface slope, vegetation, and other factors.
3. The method cannot account for a steady rate of recharge.
A new method of estimating recharge
using a combined SWAT-MODFLOW model
A method is suggested, which represents spatial variability
in the catchment in a far more intelligent manner than can
be achieved using lumped models, provided the nature of
the spatial variability is known. The key solution is to use
an integrated surface water-groundwater model. SWAT-
MODFLOW (Kim et al. 2004a, b, 2008) was selected,
which is briefly described in the following.
Overview of combined SWAT-MODFLOW
SWAT (Arnold et al. 1993) is a widely used watershed runoff
model which simplifies the channel routing and additional
groundwater components from CREAMS (Knisel 1980) and
SWRRB (William et al. 1985) for larger watersheds. SWAT
can handle larger watersheds and their heterogeneities by
representing the effects of such heterogeneities statistically
by use of the concepts of hydrological response units
(HRUs), which are soil-vegetation land use spatial com-
plexes (within a specified climatic regime) with a distinct
hydrologic response (Sophocleous and Perkins 2000). The
ArcView-SWAT (AVSWAT) interface tool (Di Luzio et al.
2004a, b) is designed to generate model inputs from
ArcView 3.x geographic information system (GIS) data
layers and execute SWAT2000 within the same framework.
AVSWAT was incorporated within the US Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA) Better Assessment Science
Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS) software
package version 3.0 (USEPA 2006a), which provides GIS
utilities that support automatic data input for SWAT2000
using ArcView (Di Luzio et al. 2001). Recently, ArcGIS
based SWAT 2005 version has been released. Arnold et al.
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of integrated SWAT-MODFLOW. Modified from Kim et al. (2008)
(2000) performed an estimation of groundwater recharge in
the Upper Mississippi basin, USA, with SWAT.
Sophocleous et al. (1997, 1999) have previously pre-
sented an interface between SWAT and MODFLOW called
SWATMOD, which is capable of simulating the flow of
surface-water, groundwater, and stream-aquifer interactions
on a continuous basis. Perkins and Sophocleous (1999)
describe drought impact analyses using this system. This
system was modified to become a two-way coupling system
and was used by Sophocleous and Perkins (2000) to
investigate irrigation effects on streamflow and groundwater
levels in the lower Republican River watershed in north
central Kansas, USA. Conan et al. (2003) applied coupled
modeling of SWAT with MODFLOW to the Coet-Dan
watershed in Brittany, France. Menking et al. (2003)
studied the combined SWAT runoff results with previous
estimates of groundwater flow (Shafike and Flanigan
1999). Galbiati et al. (2006) presented the application of
the watershed scale model SWAT, linked with MODFLOW,
to the Bonello coastal basin in northern Italy. Kim et al.
(2008) presented a fully integrated SWAT-MODFLOW
model which is capable of describing distributed recharge
and evapotranspiration as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 2 Division of SWAT for incorporating MODFLOW and subsequent variables
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
1255
The conventional groundwater flow modelers that use
MODFLOW (McDonald and Harbaugh 1988) have not
given much attention to the accuracy of the recharge rates
required in the input data. Consequently, there has been
uncertainty in the simulated results. In order to overcome
this limitation, an interface which exchanges character-
istics between the cells in MODFLOW and the hydrologic
response units (HRUs) of SWAT was developed (Kim et al.
2004a, b, 2008). The methodology of translating the HRU
recharge characteristics to the MODFLOW cell values is
well described by Kim et al. (2008).
Although SWAT itself has its own groundwater module,
it is a lumped model that cannot reflect a distributed concept.
To replace this as MODFLOW, the SWAT code should be
divided into two parts around the groundwater module. This
means that the computed recharge from SWAT would be
input to MODFLOW. For this purpose, a division is made
between the computation parts of the lower soil zone and the
saturated aquifer. On the other hand, MODFLOW computes
the groundwater level and exchange rate between the river
and aquifer; then any subsequent groundwater discharge in
the small watershed would be sent to SWAT for water budget
computation. MODFLOW’s cell based river-aquifer
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1
1256
Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of recharge computation in SWAT-
MODFLOW. Modified from Kim et al. (2008)
exchange rate along the river in a small watershed is
transferred to SWAT’s groundwater discharge on a sub-
watershed base. Cell based water tables are averaged with
the same HRUs and transferred. Namely, SWAT and MOD-
FLOW are divided into two components: the input compo-
nent and the computation component. The purpose of this
division is to include MODFLOW in the groundwater
module of SWAT. This process is shown in Fig. 2.
The SWAT subroutine ‘gwmod’ is associated with the
groundwater flow, which is computed based on the
recharge from each HRU in SWAT. Because MODFLOW
does not have any division of subbasins or HRUs, an
alternative method is required in order to use the HRU-
based groundwater recharge in SWAT as input for MOD-
FLOW. Therefore, SWAT is split before and after the
gwmod subroutine. Because the gwmod subroutine is
called by SWAT for each time step (one day), gwmod is
not easily disassembled into two parts, such as input and
computation. Therefore, the original gwmod was restruc-
tured, so that the variables calculated before calling the
gwmod subroutine could be used after calling the gwmod
subroutine. This modification makes the exchange of
variables possible (Kim et al. 2008).
Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of river-aquifer interaction. Modified
from Kim et al. (2008)
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
Fig. 5 Flow diagram for the procedure for estimating groundwater
recharge using SWAT-MODFLOW. Modified from Chung et al.
(2007)
When using SWAT, groundwater recharge rates of the
HRU within a subbasin do not contain spatial information.
An HRU spatial distribution map is made by overlaying
the soil map and the land use map in order to distribute the
recharge values of the HRU to the cells in MODFLOW by
using the RCH package. For this purpose, the HRU
number is used as the zoning number in the Basic package
of MODFLOW (*.bas file). HRU distribution maps are
used to assign the recharge values of HRU from SWAT to
each cell as the average area values of the cell. Figure 3
shows a schematic diagram of a groundwater recharge
computation in SWAT-MODFLOW.
River–aquifer interaction can also be simulated using
the River package in MODFLOW. The major input data
used in the experiment conducted in the MODFLOW
River package were the row and column of cells for the
river, the river stage, the conductance of the riverbed and
the riverbed elevation. Among these variables, river stage
and conductance of the riverbed are read directly from
SWAT. The user is able to modify these. The sum total of the
Fig. 6 Schematic diagram of multiple reservoir storage routing
model. Modified from Chung et al. (2007). I is the percolation from
the bottom of the soil layer to the first reservoir, Ki is the reservoir
storage, Qi is the outflow from the ith reservoir, and Qn is the
recharge from the last reservoir to the water table
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1
 1257
Fig. 7 Study area and asso-
ciated maps. a Digital eleva-
tion model and gauging
stations of the Mihocheon
watershed, b Land use map of
the Mihocheon watershed and
c Soil Association map of the
Mihocheon watershed

Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264 DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1

1258
riverbed elevation and the river stage is computed by SWAT.
This total is the river stage value, which is used in
MODFLOW’s River package. The conductance of the
riverbed is computed by using the hydraulic conductivity,
width and length of the channel, which are the input data for
SWAT. The user is able to read the thickness of the riverbed.
The river length in MODFLOW represents the length of the
corresponding main channel in SWAT. To match the channel
of SWAT with the river cells of MODFLOW, a river network
in a digital elevation model (DEM) is used and read by
MODFLOW. The exchange rate in each cell is computed by
adding the contributed groundwater flow to the river and the
contributed river flow to the aquifer for each respective
channel of SWAT. The exchange flow rate between river and
Fig. 8 Distribution of hydraulic conductivity K in a the alluvial layer and b the bedrock layer, and aquifer thickness in c the alluvial layer
and d the bedrock layer
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
aquifer is converted and returned to the flow rate in the
channel of SWAT. Figure 4 illustrates a schematic diagram of
the river-aquifer interaction in SWAT-MODFLOW.
Estimating spatio-temporal groundwater recharge
distribution
Figure 5 shows a flow diagram of the steps analyzed by the
proposed method of estimating groundwater recharge using
the combined SWAT-MODFLOW model (Chung et al. 2007).
The steps employed in recharge estimation are as
follows. First, all data are collected and set for the
combined modeling. These data are associated with the
weather, topography, soils, shallow aquifer, land use and
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1

management, stream channels and so forth. After an initial
test, the model should be calibrated and verified using
stream flow and groundwater data. During this second
step, the time delay parameter for recharge in the SWAT-
MODFLOW model should be checked to determine
whether the estimated recharge is compatible with the
measured groundwater-level variation.
In SWAT, storage routing in the vadose zone is
expressed by a single linear reservoir model represented
in the following Eq. 2. Thus, an exponential decay
weighting function is utilized to represent the recharge to
the aquifer on a given day.
 
wrchrg;i ¼ 1  exp1=d gw wseep;i þ exp1=d gw wrchrg;i1
1259
groundwater recharge. The digital filter technique is the
method of separating high and low frequency signals. In
streamflow hydrograph, high (direct runoff) and low (base-
flow) frequency signals were separated by filtering. The filter
equation is shown in Eqs. 3a–3b
qt ¼ bqt1 þ ð1 þ bÞ=2  ðQt  Qt1 Þ ð3aÞ
bt ¼ Qt  qt ð3bÞ
where qt is a filtered direct runoff component, bt is a
baseflow component, Qt is total runoff, and β is a filter
parameter. Nathan and McMahon (1990) suggested that β
is within 0.9–0.95.

ð2Þ

Here, wrchrg,i is the amount of recharge entering the Data collection for SWAT-MODFLOW application
aquifer on a given day i, δgw is the delay time due to the The combined model is applied to the Mihocheon basin;
overlying geologic formations, and wseep,i is the total the basin area is about 1,868 km2. SWAT-MODFLOW
amount of water exiting the bottom of the soil profile. In requires inputs on weather, topography, soils, shallow
Eq. 2, δgw is the key factor in determining the temporal aquifer, land use and management, stream channels and
distribution of recharge as well as the delay time from the other hydrogeologic inputs. The ArcView interface (Di
soil profile to the shallow aquifer. Luzio et al. 2001) was used to automate the development
In this study, this conceptual model is extended to a of model input parameters. The study basin is divided into
multiple linear reservoir model (Chung et al. 2007) to 19 subbasins as shown in Fig. 7a. Daily precipitation at
represent a wide range of lag times from soil zone to the seven gauging stations which cover the entire basin
aquifer as shown in Fig. 6. I is the percolation from the (Fig. 7a) were obtained from the hydrologic database of
bottom of the soil layer to the first reservoir, Ki is the reservoir MLTM (Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime
storage, Qi is the outflow from the ith reservoir, and Qn is the Affairs). Daily values of maximum and minimum temper-
recharge from the last reservoir to the water table. atures, solar radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity
Groundwater levels in the interest area close to the were collected from the KMA (Korea Meteorological
stream have dynamics similar to stream flow, whereas Administration) database. For the calibration and verifica-
levels further upslope respond to precipitation with a tion of the model, streamflow and groundwater data are
delay. To represent these features, it is necessary to essential. For this purpose, data from six stream gauging
account for time delay in the aquifer stations and ten national groundwater observation wells


recharge. The time
delay parameter D ¼ exp 1=dgw is adjusted until the
maximum correlation between the two time series of
simulated recharge and observed groundwater level is
obtained for specific groundwater observation wells. If an
estimated recharge time series shows good correlation with
groundwater level time series, the time delay parameter for
this case is selected as an optimal value. Thereafter, the
spatial and temporal distribution of groundwater recharge
can be quantified properly. Namely, two step calibrations are
performed. First, one compares the computed watershed
streamflow and groundwater level with the observed water-
shed streamflow and groundwater level. Then one checks the
time delay until the estimated recharge rate in a sub-
watershed would be compatible with the observed ground-
water level in that area. This process is repeated until two
calibration goals are achieved.
The final step of this procedure is to check that the
computed recharge rate shows overall good agreement with
the independently estimated annual mean groundwater
recharge rate. For this comparison, BFLOW was used,
which is a digital filtering technique (Nathan and McMahon
1990). This comparison is carried out under the assumption
that the long-term baseflow is approximately the same as the Fig. 9 Distribution of river cells in MODFLOW

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1260

Fig. 10 Calibration and validation of SWAT-MODFLOW. Simulated and observed streamflow for a the calibration period (2000–2001)
and b the validation period (2004)

Fig. 11 Comparison of simulated recharge rates and observed groundwater (GW) level according to various delay parameters (Jochiwon
observarion well)

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Fig. 12 Comparison of observed and simulated groundwater level
were collected (Fig. 7a). Land use digital data (1:25,000)
from the National Geographic Information Institute of
MLTM were used (Fig. 7b). The detailed soil association
map (1:25,000) from the NIAST (National Institute of
Agricultural Science and Technology) was used for the
selection of soil attributes. Ninety eight hydrologic soil
groups within the Mihocheon basin were used for analysis.
Among these, the major soil groups can be seen in Fig. 7c.
Relational soil physical properties such as texture, bulk
density, available water capacity, saturated hydraulic
conductivity, soil albedo and some additional factors were
obtained from the Agricultural Soil Information System of
NIAST (2005). HRUs in SWAT are made based on the
hydrologic soil group and land use.
However, due to the semi-distributed features of
SWAT, spatial addresses of each HRU in subbasins
become nonexistent. Hence, to relate HRU features to
MODFLOW, spatially distributed HRUs were employed
using a DEM with a uniform cell-size (300 m), to match
discretized subbasins with MODFLOW grids.
Since most production wells are located in the city of
Cheongju, in the southern area of the Mihocheon water-
shed, hydrogeologic investigation was carried out around
this area. The major aquifers in that area are granite
(biotite granite and porphyritic granite), schist, gneiss
(mainly biotite gneiss), and alluvium. Granite composes
the major aquifer in the central and southeastern parts of
the study area, gneiss in the northwestern part and locally,
schist in the northwestern and southeastern parts, and
alluvium in the main stream of Mihocheon watershed
(Kim and Hamm 1999). The transmissivity, which
depends largely on the rock type and degree of weath-
ering, is 4.6–300 m2/d in alluvium, and 0.53–44.5 m2/d in
gneiss and schist (MLTM 2007).
Within MODFLOW, the aquifers are represented as
three layers, discretized into a grid of 163 rows and 201
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
1261
columns. Groundwater information from the National
Groundwater Information Management and Service Cen-
ter in Korea was used to determine the aquifer character-
istics for MODFLOW inputs. Hydraulic conductivities in
the alluvial aquifer (first layer) and bedrock layers (second
and third layers) are 0.5–36.0 and 0.01–4.0 m/d, respec-
tively, as shown in Figs. 8a, b. The spatially varied aquifer
thickness of each layer is shown in Figs. 8c, d. Initial
values of the conductance of the riverbed are determined
from the soil conductivity data from a stream nearby
(NIAST 2005) and calibrated with a proper range in the
modeling process. In this study, the aquifer boundaries
were assumed to coincide with the basin boundaries.
Thus, no flow boundaries were assigned to the inactive
cells outside of the watershed. Head-dependent boundaries
were assigned along the river cells as shown in Fig. 9. In
these cells, the river-aquifer exchanged according to the
head differences.
Model validation
Streamflow was simulated using the SWAT-MODFLOW
model in the study watershed for a six-year period (2000–
2005). 2000–2001 was considered as the model calibra-
tion period and 2004 was the validation period. Model
parameters such as curve number, available water
capacity, soil evaporation compensation factor, and the
hydraulic conductivity of the streambed, were adjusted in
order to obtain a reasonable match between observed and
simulated daily streamflow (Fig. 10a).
Figure 10b shows the time series plots of simulated and
observed daily streamflow at the Seokhwa gauging station
(see Fig. 7a) for the validation period using the calibrated
parameters. A satisfactory match between simulated and
measured flows can be inferred from this figure. Statistical
analysis yielded a Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency (N–S)
of 0.62 between daily measured and simulated flows,
testifying to the model’s efficiency.
To represent the time delay in the vadose zone, δgw in
Eq. 2 was adjusted until good correlation between the
simulated daily recharge and observed groundwater level
was obtained for each groundwater observation well. Exam-
ples of the simulated recharge rates at Jochiwon monitoring
well according to the various delay parameters are represented
in Fig. 11. As shown in the figure, when D=0.7, the simulated
recharge rate shows the best correlation (R2 =0.86) with the
observed groundwater head. Through similar procedures, the
values of delay time for the remaining observation wells were
estimated.
Table 1 Goodness of estimation for groundwater level
Relative bias, RB 0.096
Mean absolute error, MAE 8.643
Relative mean absolute error, RMAE 0.136
Root mean square error, RMSE 10.180
Relative root mean square error, RRMSE 0.160
Correlation coefficient, R 0.964
Determination coefficient, R2 0.930
DOI 10.1007/s10040-010-0593-1
1262
Table 2 Estimated annual hydrological components during 2000–2005
Year Precipitation Runoff Evapotranspiration Recharge Recharge rate, percentage Recharge rate by
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) of precipitation (%) BFLOW(β=0.95) (%)
2000 1,395 984 378 273 19.6 13
2001 787 590 296 144 18.3 18
2002 1,284 858 412 222 17.3 19
2003 1,621 1,078 438 342 21.1 33
2004 1,457 1,009 411 291 20.0 19
2005 1,453 987 431 281 19.3 21
Mean 1,332 917 394 258 19.3 21

The model was also validated by comparing simulated
groundwater heads with observed ones as shown in Fig. 12.
The measured groundwater level data from 196 wells was
used to compare with simulated groundwater levels. In order
to evaluate the goodness of estimation of the groundwater
level, seven indices of statistics were used. Table 1 shows the
goodness of estimation calculated from the simulated and
measured groundwater levels at observation wells. It can be
seen that the model provides good results. Especially, the
value of determination coefficient is quite high.
Water budget estimation
The simulated results of the annual hydrological components
in the study watershed are described in Table 2. Results show
that the mean annual runoff is 69% of the annual

Fig. 13 Simulated groundwater recharge rates for different months: a June, b July, c August, and d September

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precipitation and the mean annual evapotranspiration is 30%
of that. An estimation of the recharge to the aquifer shows a
higher temporal variability with annual values (144–
342 mm/year), which corresponds to approximately 17–
21% of the annual mean precipitation. This result shows
overall good agreement with the independently estimated
annual mean groundwater recharge rate of 21% using
BFLOW (Nathan and McMahon 1990).
Distributed groundwater recharge
The distributed monthly groundwater recharge rates are
shown in Fig. 13. These recharge rates are the averages over
the entire simulation period. The figure shows considerable
spatial and temporal variation for the monthly groundwater
recharge rates in the watershed. In Korea, precipitation is
concentrated from June to September, and recharge also
shows this trend. The simulated groundwater recharge
rates range from less than 20 mm/month to more than
180 mm/month, reflecting the climatic conditions as well as
the diversity of topographical and pedological conditions.
Despite the significant infiltration in the mountainous regions
of the Mihocheon watershed, it displays low groundwater
recharge in these regions. This spatial pattern appears to be
controlled significantly by the basin slope. In the western
area, a large fraction of soil water is discharged by lateral
subsurface flow in the soil profile which is a function of
slope, slope length, and saturated conductivity of soil layer.
This result is a decrease in the quantity of the downward flow.
Conclusions
The groundwater recharge rate and its spatio-temporal
variability are critical components of the water balance with
respect to sustainability of groundwater resources. This
study has demonstrated a potential application of the
combined SWAT-MODFLOW model in simulating ground-
water recharge. By exchanging characteristics of the hydro-
logic response units (HRUs) in SWAT with cells in
MODFLOW in a fully coupled manner, the SWAT-MOD-
FLOW model is capable of estimating the amount and
spatial-temporal distribution of recharge. On average,
groundwater recharge was about 19% of the annual rainfall.
This recharge result shows good agreement with independ-
ently estimated annual groundwater recharge. However,
groundwater recharge rates in the Mihocheon basin showed
considerable variation, and its spatial patterns appeared to be
dominated by topographical conditions as well as types of
land use and soils.
Instead of a single recharge value for a large watershed,
the subdivided recharge rate with heterogeneous character-
istics can be computed on a daily basis. The estimated daily
recharge rate is an advanced quantity reflecting the hetero-
geneity of hydrogeology, climatic conditions, and land use,
as well as the physical behavior of water in soil layers.
Therefore, the newly suggested method could be expected to
enhance existing methods. However, the presented method-
ology is generally applicable to humid regions with a
Hydrogeology Journal (2010) 18: 1253–1264
1263
relatively shallow water table. In arid/semiarid regions with
deep water tables this time delay-based methodology may
run into difficulties due to the extremely long time delays.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by a grant (code
No. 2-2-3) from the Sustainable Water Resources Research Center
of the 21st Century Frontier Research Program.
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