A SOIL-WATER AND GROUNDWATER SIMULATION-MODEL - SWAGSIM

Recent estimates indicate that one-half of the existing irrigation are as around the world have shallow water tables, and require careful wat er management practices to prevent reduced productivity due to waterlo gging and secondary salinisation. Hydrologic processes affecting shall ow water tables occur continuously in both the saturated and unsaturat ed soil phases, and are influenced by climate agronomy and hydrogeolog y. We have developed a soil, water and groundwater SIMulation model (S WAGSIM) that aims to facilitate evaluation of shallow water table mana gement options with minimal data and computing requirements. It is opt imised for the Microsoft Windows operating system. In this paper, we d escribe the processes modelled within SWAGSIM, and its availability to potential users. SWAGSIM has been successfully used to determine the impact of rice growing in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA) of Ne w South Wales, to evaluate the feasibility of using shallow groundwate r pumps to control water tables in the MIA, to evaluate subsurface dra inage options for the Mead Ridge project area in Victoria, and to eval uate groundwater discharge into the Hunter River of New South Wales. C opyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.