Water balance modelling in Bowen, Queensland, and the ten iterative steps in model development and evaluation

Jakeman et al. (Jakeman, A.J., Letcher, R.A., Norton, J.P., 2006. Ten iterative steps in development and evaluation of environmental models. Environmental Modelling & Software 21, 602–614) outline ten steps in the pursuit of good practice in model development and application to increase the credibility and impact of results from environmental models. This paper shows how the ten steps of model development are relevant to numerical groundwater modelling, using a model of a data-rich coastal groundwater system near Bowen in Queensland, Australia as an example. The model is Geographic Information System-based and estimates the dynamical water balance using Darcy's Law. The method, which is generally applicable to data-rich aquifers, proved cost and time effective and provided important insights to the groundwater dynamics of the area.