Application of geostatistics in optimal groundwater monitoring network design

Abstract

Appropriate and adequate data are essential for the success of any scientific study such as groundwater hydrology. Scarcity of data and their collection on isolated location mainly in the field of hydrogeology makes it necessary to adopt special procedures such as geostatistical estimation technique for bridging the gap between field measurements and data requirements. However, these estimations are based on a crucial criterion of the structural analysis known as variography and obtaining a true and representative variogram is extremely ambiguous from limited field data. Cross-validation test to determine a representative and optimal variogram as well as to validate the other assumptions has been found very useful in case of hydrogeological parameters. © 2008 Springer Netherlands.