Trend Analysis and Spatial Prediction of Groundwater Levels Using Time Series Forecasting and a Novel Spatio-Temporal Method

Overexploitation of groundwater in the Malayer Plain has resulted in a continuous decline of groundwater levels over recent years with associated risks to water security. Effective water resource management requires the identification of the most susceptible regions and periods to such risks and, hence, spatio-temporal prediction tools of groundwater levels. For this purpose, we use 27 years of groundwater level records (between 1984 and 2012) and apply time series forecasting models including seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Holt-Winters Exponential Smoothing (HWES). The spatial variation of groundwater levels is investigated by a novel method known as Fixed Rank Kriging (FRK). The results demonstrate that ARIMA outperforms HWES in fitting the training data. In contrast, the 95% confidence bound of ARIMA predictions is wider than that of HWES and ARIMA’s predicted seasonal cycle is weaker. The time series forecasting by a stochastic simulation indicated that if the current situation continues, the level of groundwater is expected to decline from 1635 m to about 1605 m by 2022. The FRK showed that the amount of groundwater extraction in the western part of the aquifer was higher than that of the northern and central parts.