Groundwater Temperature 2010

Methodology

In order to obtain a statement regarding the groundwater temperature distribution over a large area, a Kriging interpolation based on a variogram analysis was carried out. The prerequisite for this analysis is that the groundwater temperature be a regionalized — i.e., a locality dependant — variable which can be seen as the realization of a coincidence function. A regionalized variable is e.g. characterized by the fact that neighbouring points are more similar to each other than are mutually remote points (Akim & Siemes, 1988). The purpose of a variogram analysis is to characterize these structural characteristics and to depict them mathematically. The results thus obtained are integrated as input parameters into the Kriging interpolation. The interpolation provides a freely selectable grid, the junction points of which represent the calculated groundwater temperatures.