GroMoPo Metadata for Netherlands analytic element model

In 1985, I attended the first course on analytic element modeling in the Netherlands, where Professor Otto Strack of the University of Minnesota presented his newly conceived analytic element method (AEM; Strack 1989) at the Technical University Delft from which he graduated years before. While he explained the principles and applications of the method, I started to realize that the AEM might be uniquely suited to modeling detailed ground water flow systems covering large regions because it enables cutting, pasting, and linking of entire models as well as of model parts. In 1987, at the National Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment in the Netherlands (RIZA), there was much interest in national modeling in the Netherlands because of serious water management problems that first became apparent during the major drought of 1976. In fact, there existed a national water management system of models, called PAWN (Policy Analysis for Water management in the Netherlands; Rand Corporation 1982). PAWN is an integrated system of models for simulating the distribution over the numerous national and regional surface waters in this wet country and the effects on agriculture, nature (ecology), power plants, shipping, flushing of coastal areas against salt water intrusion, and drinking water. PAWN was lacking treatment of the ground water reservoir, which had become apparent in the policy analysis of 1985 (Pulles 1985). The NAtional GROundwater Model (NAGROM) should cover this gap as part of PAWN.