Modeling belowground water table fluctuations in the Everglades

Humid lands, such as riparian zones, peatlands, and unsubmerged wetlands, areconsidered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, providing a bountifulhabitat for a large number of plant and animal species. In such ecosystems, the water tabledynamics play a key role in major ecohydrological processes. The aim of the present studyis to test with field data a recent analytical model for the estimation of the long‐termprobability distribution of the belowground water table position in groundwater‐dependentenvironments. This model accounts for stochastic rainfall and processes such asinfiltration, root water uptake, water flow from/to an external water body, and capillaryfluxes. The water table model is tested using field data of groundwater levels recorded inthree different sites within the Everglades (Florida, USA). A sensitivity analysis of themodel to the soil and vegetation parameters is also carried out. After performing aprocedure to determinate appropriate model parameters for the three sites, the steady stateprobability distribution functions of water table levels predicted by the model arecompared to the empirical ones at both the annual and the seasonal time scale. The modelis shown capable to reproduce many features of the observed distributions althoughthere exist model predictions which still show some discrepancies with respect to theempirical observations. The potential causes for these discrepancies are also investigatedand discussed.