Optimum design of groundwater level monitoring network in Yinchuan plain

The aim of the present work is to provide basis for effectively and accurately monitoring the spatial distribution and variation of regional groundwater levels, and for the regional evaluation of groundwater resources, environmental protection and agricultural planning. A groundwater regime zone map was created and used as the basis for locating new monitoring wells. Kriging interpolation method was adopted to analyze and evaluate the optimization results. Results show that: the total area of Yinchuan plain can be divided into 249 dynamic zones, and 250 groundwater level monitoring wells, among which 130 are new wells should be located in the area for promoting the high accuracy for groundwater monitoring. The evaluation for the optimization results show that after the interpolation error is reduced greatly, and the range of standard deviation becomes small in the whole Yinchuan Plain.