Recognizing relationship between groundwater level and hydrological time series (Case study: Ardabil plain)

Abstract Two approaches to identify the relation between hydrological time series (rainfall and runoff) and groundwater level (GWL) were used in the Ardabil plain. In this way, Wavelet-entropy measure (WEM) and wavelet transform coherence (WTC) as two approaches of wavelet transform (WT) were used. WEM have been considered as a criterion for the degree of time series fluctuations and WTC present common time-frequency space. In WEM calculation, monthly rainfall, runoff and GWL time series were divided into three different time periods and decomposed to multiple frequent time series and then, the energies of wavelet were calculated for each sub-series. The result showed WEM reduction in rainfall, runoff and GWL. The reduction of WEM presents the natural fluctuations decrease of time series. The reduction of entropy for runoff, rainfall and GWL time series were about 1.58, 1.36 and 29% respectively, it is concluded that fluctuation reduction of hydrological time series has relatively not more effect on the oscillation patterns of GWL signal. In this regard, it could be concluded that the human activities such as water driving from wells can be played main role in the reduction of GWL in Ardabil plain. WTC findings showed that runoff had most coherence (0.9-1) among the hydrological variables with GWL time series in the frequency bands of 4-8 and 8-16 months.