A ground-water flow and land subsidence model of Las Vegas Valley, Nevada: A converted MODFLOW model

Due to the rapid urbanization and population growth of Las Vegas Valley, Nevada, a workable and reliable ground-water flow model is required so that new physical and hydrological concepts can be incorporated into the new model realization of the aquifer system and its response to human imposed stresses can be better simulated and understood. A ground-water flow and land subsidence model of the valley has been successfully converted from that of Morgan and Dettinger (1994) to the more flexible and portable MODFLOW platform to serve this purpose. The resulting model can be fine-tuned in the future. For example, the recoverable storage parameter of the fine-grained interbeds can be more clearly defined and separated from that of the aquifer which is currently still an intricate lump sum of the two in the converted model.