In a new publication “Importance of Spatial Resolution on Global Groundwater Modelling” by Reinecke et al. in a special issue of Groundwater, the authors explore the difficulties in modelling groundwater on a global scale. Global gradient-based groundwater models are a new endeavour for hydrologists wishing to improve global hydrological models. In particular, the integration of such groundwater models enhances the simulation of exchange flows with surface water bodies and enables the implementation of capillary rise. However, these models face multiple obstacles due to their coarse spatial resolution. The study concludes that a new understanding is required on how these models can be evaluated, and that merely increasing the spatial resolution is not an elixir to improving the simulation of the global freshwater system.
