Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139

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Environmental Modelling & Software

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft

A coupled surface-subsurface hydrologic model to assess groundwater flood T

risk spatially and temporally
Xuan Yua, Daniel Moraetisb, Nikolaos P. Nikolaidisc, Bailing Lid, Christopher Duffye,
Bingjun Liua,∗
a
School of Civil Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China
b
College of Science, Earth Science Department, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 36, Muscat, 123, Oman
c
School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100, Chania, Greece
d
Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, 20771, MD, USA
e
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Floods introduced by rainfall events are responsible for tremendous economic and property losses. It is important
Groundwater flooding to delineate flood prone areas to minimize flood damages and make mitigation plans. Recently, there has been
Coupled surface-subsurface model recognition of the need to understand the risk from groundwater flooding caused by the emergence of
PIHM groundwater at the ground surface. Mapping groundwater flood risk is more challenging compared to river
Risk assessment
flooding, especially in karst systems, where subsurface preferential flowpaths can affect groundwater flow. We
Critical zone observatory
Koiliaris river basin
developed a coupled surface-subsurface modelling framework resolving spatial information and hydrologic data
to assess the groundwater flood risk at a karstic watershed: Koiliaris River Basin, Greece. The simulated
groundwater table was used to delineate groundwater flooding. Modelled results revealed the role of faults in
groundwater flooding generation. We anticipate the coupled surface-subsurface approach to be a starting point
for more sophisticated flooding risk assessment, including magnitude and temporal duration of groundwater
flooding.

1. Introduction structures could significantly improve overbank flows. These studies

Flooding is one of the most frequently occurring natural disasters
that cause significant economic damages and affect people's life around
the world (Jonkman et al., 2008; UNISDR, 2015; Kundzewicz et al.,
2014; Huntingford et al., 2014). Further more, it has now been widely
noticed that the risk of life and economic losses caused by flood may
increase due to social-development, land subsidence, and climate
change (Arnell and Gosling, 2016; Hirabayashi et al., 2013; Jongman
et al., 2015; Ward et al., 2017; Archfield et al., 2016). It is urgent to
delineate flood prone areas under changing environment and to reduce
or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. To battle the problem
of delineating flood prone areas most of the research focus on the study
of parameters of surface river flooding (Fig. 1, Yamazaki et al., 2011; Li
and Duffy, 2011). In our area of interest, Vozinaki et al. (2015) and
Kourgialas and Karatzas (2013) estimated crop loss due to overland
flooding by considering several parameters like flood depth, flow ve-
locity, and vegetation types. Costabile and Macchione (2015) showed
that implementing high-resolution topographic data and man-made
yield important insights into adequate design and development of flood
management strategies for river management. However, the previous
approach neglect a significant factor, groundwater flood, which can be
critical in flood management, especially in karstic watersheds (Finch
et al., 2004; Macdonald et al., 2008).
Groundwater flooding (Fig. 1) happens when groundwater tables
rise above the land surface away from perennial river channels or in the
floodplain before the river goes out of bank (Finch et al., 2004;
Macdonald et al., 2008). Groundwater flooding receives less attention
compared to river flooding because it happens less often with less se-
verity (e.g. Ascott et al., 2017; Morris et al., 2018). However the
management practices to prevent groundwater flooding are limited
compared to river flooding, which can be reduced by building en-
gineering structures (embankments, walls, dams, etc.). Once it happens,
groundwater flooding will take time to dissipate because groundwater
moves much more slowly than surface water (Pinault et al., 2005). Such
long-lasting groundwater flood can cause not only significant damage
to infrastructure (Abboud et al., 2017) but also more severe river

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liubj@mail.sysu.edu.cn (B. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2019.01.008
Received 18 September 2018; Received in revised form 27 December 2018; Accepted 12 January 2019
Available online 23 January 2019
1364-8152/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Yu et al.
Fig. 1. Illustration of river flooding and groundwater flooding at a watershed.
flooding (Huntingford et al., 2014). Mapping groundwater flood prone
area is more challenging compared to river flooding, due to many
controlling factors and spatial uncertainties throughout the whole wa-
tershed, including topography, land use, geology, etc. Kourgialas and
Karatzas (2014) integrated 6 factors: flow accumulation, slope, land
use, rainfall intensity, geology, and elevation to map flood hazard
across the Koiliaris River Basin (KRB), Greece. The static GIS informa-
tion of vegetation, topography, and soil can provide valuable in-
formation for locations with potential flooding risk. For example the
vegetation cover is considerably affecting the response of the water
infiltrating depth in the soil (Rossi et al., 2018). Furthermore, soil type
like e.g. silt loam can be water repellent and delay water infiltration (Li
et al., 2018). Thus, temporal dynamics of groundwater flooding is still
unclear, which requires continuous hydrologic modelling of ground-
water table elevation.
Groundwater flooding is rarely modelled spatially throughout a
watershed. Especially, in areas with complex geological karst setting
like this in KRB, groundwater flooding is prone to be developed due to
the combination of low storage, channelized preferential flow, and
rapid lateral inflow from steep uphill area (Naughton et al., 2012;
Upton & Jackson, 2011). Butscher and Huggenberger (2007) used a
conceptual karst model to approximate subsurface flow for hydrologic
simulation, and found that 32% of the springs are discharging from an
uphill area with slopes greater than 20°. Nikolaidis et al. (2013) coupled
a distributed hydrologic model and a conceptual karst model for in-
tegrated water management at KRB. Explicit representation of karsts in
a hydrologic model will be helpful to examine hydrologic links between
karst and the rest part of the watershed (e.g. Shoemaker et al., 2008;
Reimann et al., 2011; Rugel et al., 2016), improve understanding of
groundwater flooding, and achieve sophisticated water management.
In this study, we examine the spatial and temporal response of
groundwater conditions of a karst watershed to assess the risks of
groundwater flooding. Our first objective is to test the ability of a
coupled surface-subsurface hydrologic model to capture groundwater
flooding. In the model, the spatial heterogeneity of the watersheds is
explicitly resolved in the watershed responses, which includes vegeta-
tion, geology, and faults. The second objective is to understand how
faults development would affect the groundwater flooding processes.
The methodological steps of the study are (1) application of a coupled
surface-subsurface, spatially distributed hydrologic model to delineate
spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of groundwater flooding;
(2) examination of the sensitivity of fault conductivity on flood risk;
and (3) calculate agricultural loses based on groundwater flooding area
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Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139
and land use. The novelty of this work is to understand groundwater
flooding through spatial and temporal dynamics of groundwater table
simulated by coupled surface-subsurface models. We anticipate this
work to be a starting point for more sophisticated flooding risk as-
sessment. The incorporation of geological, climate and soil data into an
affordable computation load could explain spatial vulnerability as-
sessment of magnitude and temporal duration of groundwater flooding.
2. Data and methods
2.1. Koiliaris River Basin
The Koiliaris River Basin (KRB) is a Critical Zone Observatory
(Menon et al., 2014) that represents severely degraded soils due to
heavy agricultural impact over many centuries. The 130 km2 watershed
is located 15 km east of Chania, Greece (Fig. 2a). Chania has a popu-
lation of 53,910 and is the second largest city of Crete. The elevations of
KRB range from 0 to 2041 m above mean sea level and the slopes range
from 0° to 62°. Climate in the watershed is Mediterranean and char-
acterized by a separation of seasons. The average rainfall is 652 mm of
which 20% in the dry season with an average temperature of 24˚ Celsius
while in the wet season 80% of the average rainfall occurs with an
average temperature of 13˚ Celsius (Stamati et al., 2013). The land
crops include citrus trees and olive trees which are cultivated
throughout the year, while vegetables and wheat are cultivated con-
tinuously in alterations appropriate for each period (Moraetis et al.,
2015). We used hourly climate data (including precipitation, tem-
perature, relative humidity, wind velocity, solar radiation, and vapour
pressure) from three meteorological stations (i.e. Psychro Pigadi, Sa-
monas, and Kalyves. Fig. 2b). Four soil types (Fig. 2c) covers the KRB,
with the majority is Eutric leptosols (56%) and Calcaric regosols (24%).
Leptosol and regosol soils are expecting to show some differentiation in
hydrologic properties such as those mentioned by Kirchen et al. (2017)
with leptosols water holding capacity to be the lower. The watershed
consists of 13 land cover types (Fig. 2d) based on the Corine Land Cover
types (Bossard et al., 2000), and 28% of the watershed is covered by
natural grassland (pink colour in Fig. 2d), while 23% of the total area is
covered by sclerophyllous vegetation (yellow colour in Fig. 2d).
2.2. Model description
A coupled surface-subsurface hydrologic model, Penn State
Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM), was selected to perform hydro-
logic simulations of streamflow and groundwater dynamics. PIHM
(Kumar, 2009; Qu and Duffy, 2007) simulates the hydrological cycle
including interception, throughfall, infiltration, recharge, evapo-
transpiration, overland flow, unsaturated soil water, groundwater flow,
and channel routing, in a fully coupled scheme. Evapotranspiration
(ET) is calculated using the Penman-Monteith approach adapted from
Noah_LSM (Chen and Dudhia, 2001). Overland flow is described in 2-D
estimated of St. Venant equations. PIHM uses diffusive wave approx-
imation for overland flow and streamflow. The model conceptualizes
each subsurface column into two parts, unsaturated and saturated
layers. Water balance equation based on hydraulic head, which is
capable of representing the state in both unsaturated and saturated
zones. While only considering vertical moisture movement in the un-
saturated zone, the model simulates 2-D (lateral) groundwater flow in
unconfined aquifer based on the Dupuit approximation without ad-
dressing the karstic conduits network and the diffuse flow system in
deep (e.g. Butscher and Huggenberger, 2007). Interception and snow-
melt are obtained using a Bucket Model and a Temperature Index
Model, respectively. Horizontally, the modelling domain is decomposed
into Delaunay triangles. The governing equation for each process is
discretized on the triangles from canopy to bedrock, forming partial
differential equations (PDEs). PIHM uses a semi-discrete finite volume
formulation for solving the set of the coupled PDEs, resulting in a
X. Yu et al. Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139

Fig. 2. a) KRB (shown as red area) in Greece (shown as dark gray), b) historic groundwater flooding sites modified from (Kourgialas and Karatzas, 2011), c) soil map
and d) land cover. Code of land cover is explained in Table S1. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web
version of this article.)

system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) representing all pro-
cesses of each triangle. The ODE system is solved using the CVODE
implicit solver (Cohen and Hindmarsh, 1996). Detailed descriptions of
the modelling theory and mathematical formulation can be found at the
PIHM website (http://www.pihm.psu.edu/) and associated publication
(Kumar, 2009; Qu, 2005; Qu and Duffy, 2007).
In this study, we applied the coupled surface-subsurface hydrologic
modelling method to explicitly simulate groundwater table elevation
throughout KRB for groundwater flood assessment. There are several
advantages for PIHM modelling for this study: 1) the easy setup for the
physical properties of the surface and subsurface layers including faults
by PIHMgis (Bhatt et al., 2014) 2) the model captures fully coupled
dynamics of surface water and groundwater interactions (e.g. Yu et al.,
2015a; Zhang et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2019), hence allowing spatial
and temporal delineation of floods and 3) geologic faults with sub-
stantial impacts on groundwater flow can be explicitly represented in
the model as large scale preferential flow through high permeable re-
gions.
2.3. Model parameterization, calibration
PIHMgis (Bhatt et al., 2014) was used to parameterize the model
domain using the aforementioned datasets (i.e. DEM, meteorological,
soil, and land cover data). The KRB and the extended karstic area were

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X. Yu et al.
discretized into 914 triangles, and the river was discretized to 92 linear
segments (Fig. S1). The extended karstic area has been assigned by
others as contributing area in the water budget of our study area
(Kourgialas et al., 2010). We estimated subsurface hydrologic para-
meters using texture data and pedotransfer functions (Wösten et al.,
1999). The pedotransfer functions used are generally applied for the
different soil textures within Europe (Wösten et al., 1999) and they are
not site specific. Therefore, it is suitable for a regional study such as the
present work. The distribution of major faults was implemented ac-
cording to the description in Tataris and Christodoulou (1969). An
analysis of the tectonic phases in Crete has revealed different phases of
deformation which have definitely influence the faults hydraulic
properties. For example the mega- and meso-folds with fold axis W-E
and NeS which were created during the beginning of the orogenesis in
Crete. Perpendicular to these folds, dip-slip W-E and NeS striking faults
were created during the extensional phase in Crete (Fassoulas et al.,
2004). The previous faults considered the oldest generation of faults
which led to intense karstification with vast and deep sinkholes and
shafts like Gourgoutakas and Liontari Caves (Moraetis et al., 2010;
Adamopoulos, 2013). These W-E and NeS are of high hydraulic con-
nectivity compare to the other fault zone of NW-SE striking direction
which are much younger with less karstification and extensive pre-
servation of faults’ slickenlines (Fassoulas, 2001; Caputo et al., 2010).
Both these generations of faults exist in Koiliaris. Hydraulic con-
ductivity is simulated as being 10 times in the oldest faults (W-E and
NeS) and 2 times in the youngest faults (NW-SE) (Fig. 2c). The hy-
draulic conductivity is selected higher in the older faults since the in-
tensely karstified areas are along the W-E faults. Kartsic features,
especially sinkholes have been observed also in other areas along ex-
tensional faults like in our case (Prasad et al. 2017). These karstified
areas are largely affecting the water flow and the hydraulic con-
ductivities along the faults. The hydraulic conductivity can change from
10−7-10−6 (m/s) in massive limestones (Kovács, 2003) to 10−5 in the
epikarst (Hartmann et al., 2012) and to 10−3 (m/s) in karstified faults
(PolomčiĆ et al., 2013). Finally, the past speleological expeditions in
the deep sinkholes in our study area shows chaotic vertical shafts from
masl (meters above sea level) of 1500 m down to 300 masl. The karstic
shafts correspond to what Moraetis et al. (2010) and Nikolaidis et al.
(2013) presented as fast responding karstic system or upper reservoir.
The land cover parameters were obtained from monthly GLDAS
vegetation parameters (Rodell et al., 2004) and mapped according to
Table S1. The depth of groundwater flow was estimated based on the
depth of the groundwater in the low land areas approximately 20 m
below the land surface. The depth is consistent with the depth of the
epikarst around the world (Jones, 2013). The value was used uniformly
throughout the watershed.
Our simulations were performed for 3 years (July 2007–July 2010,
when flooding was severe, Fig. S2) using PIHM v2.2 (2015). Initial
condition was achieved using spinup of two previous years (July
2005–June 2007). Initialized groundwater tables were below the land
surface and above bedrock (20 m below the land surface). Observed
daily streamflow data at Stylos Spring (Fig. 2b) and MODIS remotely
sensed ET dataset (MOD16) (Running et al., 2017) were used for model
calibration. According to the hydrologic characteristics of parameter,
we calibrated two groups separately: event and seasonal scale groups
(Table 1, Yu et al., 2013). The event scale parameters were optimized
through an evolutionary algorithm (Yu et al., 2013). We selected
streamflow observation data from Feb 25, 2009 to March 4, 2009, in
which highest streamflow happened, for event scale parameter cali-
bration. The seasonal scale parameters were tuned based on evapo-
transpiration (ORNL DAAC, 2017) using observations from July 1, 2008
to June 30, 2009. The rest of the simulation was used for validation. We
used the relative error (E), Pearson product-moment correlation coef-
ficient (R), and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (NSE) (Nash and
Sutcliffe, 1970) to evaluate the model performances (Table 2).
Streamflow calibration results are shown in Fig. 3a. The dynamics of
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Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139
streamflow variation between observed and modelled results were in
reasonable agreement and are considered acceptable. Similar modelled
and observed runoff ratios of 0.60 and 0.62, respectively, also indicated
reliable partitioning of the water budget. Furthermore, 8-day average
ET (ORNL DAAC, 2017) of this watershed was in good agreement with
MODIS data (Fig. 3b).
2.4. Delineation of groundwater flooding map
Since the focus of this paper is on the dynamics of groundwater
response, further confidence in the model result in this context was
built by evaluating the ability of the model to simulate the historic
flooding locations. We extracted daily groundwater table depths of each
finite volume (i.e. triangle of the modelling mesh) from the calibrated
PIHM simulation results. Groundwater flooding locations and areas
were delineated by analysing the temporal dynamics of PIHM simulated
groundwater tables according to Eq. (2).
⎧ High MaximumGW > 0
Groundwater flood vulnerability = Moderate SkewnessRGW < 0
⎨
⎩ Low SkewnessRGW ≥ 0 (1)
GW − MinimumGW
RGW =
MaximumGW − MinimumGW (2)
Groundwater flooding may happen under two conditions: 1)
groundwater table rises above land surface during the simulation
period, and 2) groundwater table is shallow during the wet season and
the area can be potentially flooded during rainfall events. We used
maximum groundwater table elevation (MaximumGW) to quantify the
first situation, where groundwater table height was above surface.
These places are of high groundwater flooding risk. The second situa-
tion was examined by the frequency of groundwater getting close to the
surface. We rescaled the groundwater table elevation to 0 to 1 as re-
lative groundwater table elevation (RGW, Eq. (2)) and then analysed
the temporal dynamics using the skewness of the rescaled groundwater
table elevations (SkewnessRGW) (Fig. 4). If the skewness is less than 0, it
means the groundwater table is often close to the land surface, which
can potentially result in groundwater flooding (i.e. moderate ground-
water flooding risk). If the skewness is positive, the groundwater is
often far below the land surface, hence less likely to cause groundwater
flooding (i.e. low groundwater flooding risk).
Time lag between river flooding peak and groundwater table height
peak was used to identify the temporal dynamics of groundwater
flooding. We selected 8 events during the 3 years. In each event, the
time of peak streamflow and peak groundwater table height was ana-
lysed.
We varied the fault hydraulic conductivity for sensitivity analysis to
assess the impacts of faults on groundwater flooding, since the fault
hydraulic conductivity can vary significantly based on field experi-
ences. The hydraulic conductivity of faults was changed at different
magnitudes to simulate karst development scenarios. We analysed both
spatial locations of groundwater flooding and the time delays of
groundwater flooding.
2.5. Cost estimation of agricultural losses due to groundwater flooding
The estimation of groundwater flooding cost was based on the cal-
culations demonstrated by Vozinaki et al., (2015). The designated area
of high risk was ascribed with the land uses data from Corine database
(European Environment Agency, 2004). The intersection of land cover
and high risk flooding areas produced the percentage of different land
uses in the high risk flooding areas. The agricultural flood damage was
calculated by the total area of each crop type under high flooding risk,
the weight yield per area and the cost per unit weight of yield. We
retrieved the weight yield per area and the cost per unit weight of yield
from Vozinaki et al. (2015). In the previous study the depth and flow
X. Yu et al. Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139

Table 1
PIHM Model Parameter Attributes and calibration factors.
Parameter description Unit Initial value Calibrated factor Group

Matrix conductivity (horizontal) (m/day) 4.2–6.8 0.3 Event scale group

Matrix conductivity (vertical) (m/day) 0.4–0.7 0.7
Macropore conductivity (horizontal) (m/day) 42–68 3.2
Macropore conductivity (vertical) (m/day) 4–7 6.9
Infiltration rate (m/day) 0.7–1.5 5.2
Macropore depth (m) 0.1 0.5
Porosity (m3/m3) 0.49–0.53 0.5
Van Genuchten parameter α (m−1) 2.9–3.5 0.3
Van Genuchten parameter β 1.2–1.3 2.6
River Mannings roughness (day/m1/3) 4.63 × 10−7 3.2
River bed conductivity (horizontal) (m/day) 0.6 1.8
River bed conductivity (vertical) (m/day) 0.1 1
Root zone depth (m) 0.6 1.5 Seasonal scale group
Vegetation fraction (m2/m2) 0.1–0.7 1.1
Field capacity (m3/m3) 0.8 × porosity 1.1
Wilting point (m3/m3) 0.01 1
Maximum interception storage capacity factor (m) 2.0 × 10−4 1.6

velocity of the flood were mostly 0–1.2 m and 0–0.3 m/s respectively.
Thus, our estimations are based on these calculations and we adopted
the flood damage cost standard deviation given therein.
3. Results
one day, the peaks of groundwater flooding delayed longer, and showed
diverse spatial patterns (events 2, 3, 4, and 6, Fig. 7). Apart from the
time lags in the emergence of the event, there were also spatio-temporal
changes in the decay of the phenomena (Figs. 6 and 7). Such in-
formation is critical to flood mitigation.

3.1. Spatial distribution of groundwater flooding

3.3. Sensitivity to hydraulic conductivity of faults
Groundwater flooding map was created as three types of risk: high,
Increase fault hydraulic conductivity created wider areas of
moderate, and low with areas of 100, 21, and 8.7 km2, respectively
groundwater flooding (Fig. 8). The delineated groundwater flooding
(Fig. 5). The spatial distribution of groundwater flooding was located
areas were 20.3, 29.4, and 32.0 km2 for low, medium, and high K of
around low elevation regions and faults. This was probably because
faults. The high flooding risk areas were 8.0, 8.7, and 9.2 km2 for low
groundwater recharge from sinkholes in mountainous area could
medium, and high K of faults. The moderate flooding risk areas were
quickly discharge through highly fractured faults. Eleven of the 30
12.0, 20.7, and 22.8 km2 for low medium, and high K of faults.
historic flooded sites were captured by high flood risk, and 14 historic
Increase fault hydraulic conductivity reduced responding time of
flooded sites were captured by moderate flood risk. The rest 5 historic
groundwater flooding. The average time lags between groundwater
sites not captured by high or moderate risks were located next to the
flooding and river flooding were 10.4, 8.9, and 6.7 h for low medium,
riverbanks. Previous studies (Vozinaki et al., 2015; Kourgialas and
and high K of faults (Fig. 9).
Karatzas 2014) used high resolution modelling of riverine areas to
capture flooding locations. Since, our model grid is an unstructured
mesh, it will be easy to increase spatial resolution around the river. 3.4. Damage cost calculation

3.2. Temporal dynamics of groundwater flooding
Groundwater flooding was generally less abrupt than river flooding.
In all of the 9 selected rainfall-runoff events (Fig. 6, Table 3), there was
a significant delay of the peak between groundwater flooding and river
flooding indicated by model simulation. The average time lag (Fig. 6b)
varied from 4.4 to 14.2 h with a mean of 8.9 h.
Time lags between groundwater flooding and river flooding (i.e.
peak flow in the river) showed spatial heterogeneity. The time lags
were generally small around the faults, and large in the flood plain (i.e.
the northeast part of KRB). This was due to the high hydraulic con-
ductivity of the faults. When the precipitation event lasted more than
In our study the total area of high flooding risk is 7% of the total
watershed and 23% of the cultivated area. The land uses distribution in
the high-risk areas is given in Table 4. The olive grooves have the
highest coverage in the high-risk areas (39%), while agricultural land
has the second highest coverage (24%) (Table 4). The highest cost of
damage derives from olive groves and the second comes from fruit trees
(Table 4). The total damage cost is 2.1 × 106 €. The calculation of the
cost followed the methodology of Vozinaki et al., (2015), where the
synthetic damage curves were used. Even the number of data was not
large in the previous study, it was considered representative for our
study area since a questionnaire survey had be conducted specifically
for Koiliaris watershed.

Table 2
Model performance of daily streamflow.
E (%) R NSE

Calibration (2008/7/1–2009/6/30) 2.3 0.8 0.61

Validation (2007/7/1–2008/6/30, 2009/7/1–2010/6/30) 3.7 0.77 0.56
Equationa S −O ∑i (Oi − O¯ )(Si − S¯ ) ∑i (Oi − Si)2
× 100% 1−
O
∑i (Oi − O¯ )2 ∑i (Si − S¯ )2 ∑i (Oi − O¯ )2

Ideal value 0 1 1
Range -∞,+∞ −1, 1 -∞,1

a
S and O represent simulated value and observed value respectively.

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Fig. 3. Comparison of modelled and observed (a) discharge at Stylos spring, (b) daily evapotranspiration. In subplot (a) gray area denotes the calibration period,
while white area denotes the validation area.

Fig. 4. Histogram of relative groundwater table elevation a) positive skewness and b) negative skewness.

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Fig. 5. Groundwater flooding risk map for the Koiliaris River basin. Red dot
indicates historic groundwater flooding sites. (For interpretation of the refer-
ences to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of
this article.)

4. Discussion

4.1. Data interpretation of coupled surface-subsurface modelling

The advantage of coupled surface-subsurface modelling is to ex-

plicitly simulate the head above ground. Our simulation is distributed
throughout the watershed and processes of infiltration and discharge
are dynamically considered through coupled surface-surface equations.
Therefore, identification of groundwater flooding according to model-
ling results is relatively easy. Groundwater models (e.g. MODFLOW) are
often used to identify location of groundwater spring (e.g. Reed et al.,
2016; Gallegos et al., 2013). Similarly, groundwater flooding can be
simulated through groundwater flow modelling to avoid realistic in-
teractions between surface water and groundwater. However, such
strategy may have limitation around riverbank. We note that Drainage
Pack (Harbaugh, 2005) of MODFLOW can be a potential solution for
groundwater flooding. It will helpful to compare our results with
groundwater modelling results.
The purpose of coupled surface-subsurface modelling is to improve
understanding on hydrologic processes rather than runoff prediction
efficiency. Previous watershed modelling studies obtained higher NSE
of runoff (e.g. 0.91 and 0.87 in Kourgialas et al., 2010; 0.62 in
Nikolaidis et al., 2013). Ideally, coupled surface-subsurface modelling
has more parameters and gives better fit. Practically, the parameters are
bounded by physical meanings and the calibration of coupled surface-
subsurface models is usually difficult (Yu et al., 2013). In addition,
calibration to different types of data may result poorer fit as the para-
meters try to serve different dynamics that dominate different data sets.
Both uncertainties in spatial parameters and temporal forcing can
consistently create model discrepancy at the stream gauge. It is ac-
ceptable that our simulated runoff was degraded comparing to previous
modelling studies. Notably, the application of coupled surface-subsur-
face hydrologic models is not only on streamflow dynamics (Chen et al.,
2015; Seo et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2017) but also on spatial and
temporal dynamics of soil moisture (Shi et al., 2015), groundwater Fig. 6. Temporal dynamics of groundwater flooding and river flooding in-
table elevation (Yu et al., 2016), snow accumulation (Kumar et al., dicated by model simulation. a) Rainfall runoff processes, solid blue line re-
2013; Yu et al., 2015b), which can create continuous spatial products of presents simulated river runoff, dashed black line represents groundwater table
elevation relative to the land surface, red bar represents rainfall rate. b) Peak
hydrologic and ecologic variables (Yu et al., 2015a; Condon et al.,
time of river flooding and groundwater flooding. Time starts from previous no-
2015; Shi et al., 2018).
precipitation date. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
Interpretation of coupled surface-subsurface modelling results re- legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
quires combination of localized information and targeted problem.

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Table 3
Nine largest precipitation events in KRB during 2007/7/1–2010/6/30.
No. Event date Return Peak of river Peak of groundwater
period (year) flooding (hour) flooding (hour)

Mean Std. Mean Std.

1 2008/1/24 <1 22.3 4.8 26.7 7.0

2 2008/2/11 2 9.2 5.5 23.4 10.7
3 2008/2/16 1 20.0 0.9 27.4 7.9
4 2009/1/10 <1 26.7 2.2 35.6 6.9
5 2009/2/25 5 24.4 0.5 31.7 7.0
6 2009/4/5 <1 14.2 1.7 25.3 8.0
7 2009/5/4 <1 20.3 0.4 26.8 8.0
8 2010/1/17 3 13.0 0.9 23.1 12.4
9 2010/3/15 <1 5.7 0.6 16.2 10.8

Coupled surface-subsurface models usually simulate many hydrologic

fluxes and state variables across spatial and temporal scales. These si- Fig. 8. Sensitivity of groundwater flooding area to fault hydraulic conductivity.
mulated results are usually validated only by streamflow or ground- Young and old refer to fault categories shown in Fig. 2c.
water table elevation at limited locations, which leaves large un-
certainties in spatial distribution of groundwater table (Yu et al., 2016)
and soil moisture (Shi et al., 2015). Without calibration on local
groundwater table, we showed that relative dynamics of groundwater
table could be reliable in terms of spatial information, when absolute
groundwater table height showed deviated pattern. This is probably
due our model confidence in ET performance. Further calibration on
groundwater table and assessment of uncertainties are needed to refine
the spatial information on flood risk.

4.2. Implications for flood management

In this basin, identification of faults is critical for prediction of

groundwater flooding. Macropore has been found to contribute
groundwater flooding due to accumulated wetness over several years
(Pinault et al., 2005). Our results showed that distribution of faults
Fig. 9. Sensitivity of groundwater flooding time lag to fault hydraulic con-
could potentially increase groundwater flood risk. Fault development
ductivity.
was not incorporated in vast majority of hydrology models. At KRB,
Kourgialas et al. (2008) and Nikolaidis et al. (2013) have introduced

Fig. 7. Spatial distribution of time lag between river flooding and groundwater flooding indicated by model simulation.

136
X. Yu et al.
Table 4
Land uses coverage (m2) and % percentage of land uses in high flooding risk areas. The cost of flooding damage was calculated based on the cost per unit of yield
weight and yield per land use.
Land uses
Fruit trees and berry plantations
Olive groves
Complex cultivation patterns
Land principally occupied by agriculture, with significant areas of natural
vegetation
Natural grasslands
Sclerophyllous vegetation
Total
fault data. However, these faults were incorporated to support the de-
lineation of extended watershed area for the karstic aquifer and forcing
the routing of water from the extended karst to the springs inside the
watershed. Our study suggested that including faults in a physically-
based 3D hydrologic model automatically the extended karst is deli-
neated and thus the model provides additional information for flood
management.
Faults of high hydraulic conductivity are vulnerable to abrupt
groundwater flooding when the rain intensity exceeds the infiltration
rate of the karst (Gutiérrez et al., 2014). The groundwater table can rise
quickly due to high connectivity to surface water. The previous explains
probably also the observed time lag of groundwater flooding and river
flooding. The higher lag in the rain events where precipitation is dis-
tributed in more days could be possibly related to more effective in-
filtration from the karst. On the other hand more intense events lower
the infiltration capacity and increase the abrupt fault response. Not to
neglect also, the effect of the spatial distribution of the rain event, close
or not in the major faults area, which can affect the lag between the
groundwater flooding and the river flooding.
Faults of low hydraulic conductivity are vulnerable to slowly de-
veloped groundwater flooding. Groundwater storage can be accumu-
lated during the whole wet seasons, years before groundwater dis-
charge happens (Pinault et al., 2005). This type of groundwater
flooding may last long time and difficult to mitigate.
Flooding risks associated with faults behaviours in the groundwater
flooding events may impose significant costs in the agriculture sector.
For example, the flood risk designation for KRB from Vozinaki et al.
(2015) revealed areas of high flooding risk around the river with an
estimation of 0.2 × 106 € damages for an inundated area of 0.4 km2
(one order of magnitude smaller compared to 2.1 × 106 € in this study
for the whole river basin). The percentage of the study area in the
previous work is restricted to river over-bank flooding and correspond
only in the 0.003% of the total watershed and 0.02% of the agricultural
land which is very low compare to our estimations of the affected areas
(7 and 24% respectively). The reduction of the affected area is due to
the fact that the previous study considered the flooding caused by
Koiliaris River (a 5 Km stretch from the springs to the sea located in the
alluvial plain) without considering groundwater overland flow. The
cost of the flood damage in our case is expanding in million of euros,
compare to the hundred thousand obtained by Vozinaki et al. (2015).
Despite, we have not considered the depth and the velocity of the flood
in our cost estimation we believe that the cost will be maintained in the
same magnitude. Other critical factors which are lately gaining large
attention is the flood frequency and the flood duration (Ward et al.,
2017). It has been stressed that El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is
affecting the flood duration more than flood frequency (Ward et al.,
2017). However, the recent studies in Crete showed that climate be-
comes drier with higher frequency of extreme events (Tsanis et al.,
2011). The same work shows an increase of 35% of events with high
precipitation which a clear indication that a minimum 35% of damages
is likely to occur. The flood frequency definitely will increase the
Environmental Modelling and Software 114 (2019) 129–139
Area (km2) Percentage of different land use Cost per unit weight Yield (kg/km2) 106€
(%) (€/kg)
1.4 16 0.18 3 × 106 0.8
3.6 39 0.48 5 × 105 0.8
0.2 2 0.51 4 × 106 0.4
2.2 24 – – –
1.2 13 – – –
0.5 6 0.18 1 × 106 0.1
9.1 100 – – 2.1
damages both in economy and mortality (Hu et al., 2018).
The groundwater modelling of the present study is significant in the
understanding of the soil degradation in karstic mountainous areas. It
has been presented from other studies that the karstic groundwater is
conveying dissolved pollutants during flood events like e.g. nitrates
from mountainous areas toward lowland areas at Koiliaris watershed
(Nikolaidis et al., 2013; Moraetis et al., 2010). The previous impact is
related to livestock grazing in the higher land where grasses are
growing during summer. The identification of groundwater flood areas
will designate the areas accepting probably low quality water. On the
other hand the quality analysis of the groundwater flood water will
offer the opportunity to understand the soil degradation reflection in
the karst water.
4.3. Sources of uncertainty
Model uncertainty was created by the simplified vertical re-
presentation of geology. The geology was represented by homogeneous
texture from ground surface to bedrock in each triangle. Such simpli-
fication may likely results in high spikes in simulated streamflow.
Consequently, the groundwater flooding damage may be over-pre-
dicted. Also, we used 20 m as the thickness from ground surface to
bedrock depth, though we have noticed that the geologic layer can
reach as high as several kilometres in the karst area and few meters in
the alluvial. Since spatial thickness of geology is currently not available,
our simplification could be valid in terms of relative groundwater ele-
vation and frequency analysis. In addition, uniform depth of geologic
layer can significantly reduce the computational cost.
Subsurface heterogeneity in 3D is another overlooked aspect. In
karstic regions groundwater flowpaths can be long and one can imagine
that groundwater flooding in one place could results from hydro-
dynamics some distance away (Butscher and Huggenberger, 2007;
Gutiérrez et al., 2014; Hartmann et al., 2014; Rugel et al., 2016). Our
model PIHM can only represent very local and shallow near surface
dynamics of groundwater tables. New generations of models should
address multilayer subsurface dynamics at timescales ranging from
floods to seasonal long distance cavernous drainage. Though dynamic
modelling of karstic system is computationally expensive, the greatest
limitation to the development at present is a scarcity of field observa-
tions.
Precipitation can greatly influence groundwater flooding. We only
simulated 3 years (annual runoff was 4.93 m3/s) hydrologic processes
due to intensive computational cost of coupled surface-subsurface
modelling (The execution time was 4120 min on Intel Core i5-8500 @
3.00 GHz). We selected relatively wet years since 1972 (annual runoff
was 2.96 m3/s from 1972 to 2010) (Fig. S2). Therefore, we probably
overestimated the cost of flood damage. Long-term hydrologic model-
ling is necessary to reveal the impacts of regional climate mechanisms
(Koutroulis et al., 2010) on groundwater flooding when computation
power is improved.
Improvement of temporal and spatial ET prediction is important to
137
X. Yu et al.
modelling flooding processes (Abiodun et al., 2018). Our simulated ET
was less confident during winter and spring season. This was due to
uncertainties in spatial parameters of land cover and soil properties.
Spatially, the ET was primarily determined by vegetation type, special
attention should be paid to the dominant vegetation types to improve
spatial accuracy of model simulation. In addition, the simulated ET
deviation in winter and spring may cause flood prediction error trig-
gered by snow melting. Thus, observation of snow accumulation is re-
quired to improve flood prediction.
Finally, the flood damage cost which has been referred in the pre-
sent study is only an indicative estimation to show the magnitude of the
problem of groundwater flood. Critical factors like flood depth and
velocity were followed from other published work as already men-
tioned. Therefore these factors need to be elaborated for more accurate
estimation of flood damage cost. Accordingly, the coupled surface-
subsurface model can be adopted in regard to grid resolution, process
integration, result post-processing.
5. Summary
We developed a coupled surface-subsurface model for groundwater
flood risk assessment. The model can be used to delineate flood-hazard
areas and risk-levels and predict flood time, which are fundamental
components of flood management. The methodology presented in this
paper could become a useful tool for the prediction of groundwater
flooding areas and for the better understanding on the mechanisms of
groundwater flooding.
This paper demonstrated a solution for improving environmental
assessment dealing with groundwater dynamics. In particular, coupled
surface and subsurface modelling can offer sophisticated solutions to
the users regarding the coupling of hydrological information to not only
flooding but also other groundwater related problems (e.g. ecological
conservation, agricultural management). In this sense, the techniques
proposed here about the distributed groundwater dynamics may be
easily implemented in diverse environmental management, since PIHM
is open source software.
Acknowledgement
The authors owe thanks to the four anonymous reviewers for their
constructive comments which greatly improved the manuscript.
Financial support for this study was provided by the European
Commission 7th Framework Programme as a Large Integrating Project
(SoilTrEC, Grant Agreement no. 244118), the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51879289 and No. 91547108), and the
National Key Research and Development Program of China
(2017YFC0405900).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2019.01.008.
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