Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

MODFLOW-NWT model used to evaluate effects of complexity on head and flow calibration in the Fox-Wolf-Peshtigo watersheds, Wisconsin: U.S. Geological Survey data release.

Metadata Updated: December 10, 2025

This data release contains three groundwater-flow models of northeastern Wisconsin, USA, that were developed with differing levels of complexity to provide a framework for subsequent evaluations of the effects of process-based model complexity on estimates of groundwater age distributions for withdrawal wells and streams. Preliminary assessments, which focused on the effects of model complexity on simulated water levels in the glacial aquifer system, illustrate that simulation of vertical gradients using multiple model layers improves simulated heads more in relatively low-permeability units than in high-permeability units. Moreover, simulation of heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity fields in both coarse-grained and some fine-grained glacial materials produced an even larger improvement in simulated water levels in the glacial aquifer system compared with simulation of uniform hydraulic conductivity within zones. Future application of the models using simulated particle tracking is anticipated to evaluate whether these model design considerations are similarly important for understanding groundwater age distributions. This work was performed as part of the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project's groundwater Mapping and Modeling work plan to evaluate effects of differing levels of model complexity on simulated results. The models were calibrated to approximately the 1970-2012 period, and used to simulate steady-state conditions. This USGS data release contains all of the input and output files for the simulations described in the associated model documentation report (https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20175010). This data release also includes a postprocessing python script and associated input data files for creating shapefiles used to produce maps of head and flux residuals and comparisons of these residuals (figures 12, 13, and 19 in the report).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 10, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 10, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-062ad924-f0f3-4cc9-b844-8d1f5808f494
Data Last Modified 2020-11-17T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 5bf267af-d664-4ee0-8bc8-692ba86a76cc
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 88465371a888e02dfc2634f53dfca8ce30787e434ad6a5c47c47082e18c3ae3e
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.