On fractal nature of groundwater level fluctuations due to rainfall process

Maminirina Joelson (1) , Jacques Golder (1) , Philippe Beltrame (1) , Marie-Christine Neel (1) , Liliana Di Pietro (1)

1 EMMAH - Environnement Méditerranéen et Modélisation des Agro-Hydrosystèmes

Hourly resolution time series of groundwater level fluctuations are analyzed after removing the seasonal cycle. It is found that fluctuations of groundwater levels have fractal scaling and a persistent behavior. We show also that groundwater level fluctuations exhibit non-Gaussian heavy tailed probability distribution that is well fitted by the Levy stable distribution. Implications of the present results on the groundwater system modeling as a fractional Levy motion and the connection with the anomalous diffusion inside the soil are discussed

Mots clés: Groundwater level fluctuations; Fractal; Scale invariant; High order; spectra analysis; Levy stable distribution; Hurst exponent

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Milieux et Changements globaux

Maminirina Joelson, Jacques Golder, Philippe Beltrame, Marie-Christine Neel, Liliana Di Pietro. On fractal nature of groundwater level fluctuations due to rainfall process. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2016, 82, pp.103-115. ⟨10.1016/j.chaos.2015.11.010⟩. ⟨hal-01277631⟩