Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172

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Groundwater for Sustainable Development

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gsd

Research paper

Physics-informed neural networks in groundwater flow modeling:

Advantages and future directions
Ahmed Shakir Ali Ali a, Farhad Jazaei a, b, *, T. Prabhakar Clement c, Brian Waldron a, b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
b
Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
c
Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• PINN has the potential to become a rival

groundwater modeling as an AI
alternative.
• PINN addressing conventional model
limitations will promote its industry
adoption.
• PINN models can provide a solution at
any arbitrary and continuous point and
time.
• PINN can deliver solutions without
starting computations at a specific time.
• PINN still needs to be improved to solve
complex groundwater flow problems.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In recent years, there has been enormous development in soft computing, especially artificial intelligence (AI),
Artificial intelligence which has developed robust methods for solving complex engineering problems. Researchers in the field of water
Physics-informed neural network resources engineering have applied these AI methods to solve a variety of hydrological problems. Despite their
PINN
widespread use in the surface and atmospheric hydrology fields, groundwater hydrologists have not widely used
Groundwater modeling
MODFLOW
AI methods in their routine field-scale modeling efforts. This is because AI models have been primarily
considered black box models that lack physical meaning. Furthermore, using AI models to generate the space-
time distribution of transient groundwater level variations is challenging and requires further flux balance
and mass transport analyses. More recently, a new type of physics-informed neural network (PINN) model has
been developed to address several limitations by integrating governing physics (groundwater flow equations)
into the AI tools. This study presents the systematic advantages of the PINN algorithm for solving groundwater
problems using a set of classic test problems. As discussed in detail in the article, these advantages and potentials
are associated with the meshless nature of PINN, its continuous time and space dimensions, its independence

* Corresponding author. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA.
E-mail address: fjazaei@memphis.edu (F. Jazaei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsd.2024.101172
Received 15 June 2023; Received in revised form 2 April 2024; Accepted 3 April 2024
Available online 12 April 2024
2352-801X/© 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A.S.A. Ali et al.
from time-stepping and incremental marching in space, and its efficiency in running time. However, despite
PINN’s promising attributes, it is important to acknowledge its nascent stage of development and the inherent
limitations of all neural network models, such as training challenges and hyperparameter selection. Thus,
collaborative efforts between groundwater modelers and computer scientists are imperative to explore and
exploit the full potential of PINN in tackling increasingly complex groundwater problems and nurturing PINN
into a dependable modeling tool in industry and academia.
1. Introduction
Groundwater is a crucial water source, especially in areas with
limited or unreliable surface water. However, it is essential to manage
this valuable resource sustainably to ensure its availability in the long
run (Alakayleh et al., 2022; Muenratch and Nguyen, 2023; Sanga and
Koli, 2023). Therefore, it has become imperative to comprehend
groundwater flow dynamics and develop models that simulate the ef­
fects of both natural and human-induced stress on groundwater flow.
This information is crucial for making informed decisions on ground­
water development (Jazaei et al., 2018; Paul et al., 2022).
Simulating groundwater flow processes using standardized public-
domain numerical codes that solve partial differential equations
(PDEs) first emerged in the 1970s with various research codes developed
by the US Geological Survey (USGS). These efforts eventually led to the
development of well-known public domain USGS codes such as the
modular finite-difference (FD) flow model (MODFLOW) (McDonald and
Harbaugh, 1988; Mehl and Hill, 2013) and the finite element code
SUTRA (Voss, 1984). During the same period, FEFLOW, another
finite-element-based model, was also developed at the German Academy
of Sciences Berlin (Diersch, 1981, 2013) and became increasingly pop­
ular in the mid-2000s. Various numerical discretization algorithms and a
variety of matrix solvers, such as Preconditioned Conjugate-Gradient
(PCG) and Strongly Implicit Procedure (SIP), are employed in these
numerical models that solve the governing groundwater flow equations
(Ashiq et al., 2020; Bailey et al., 2016; Sankar et al., 1982; Tiwari and
Vadhiyar, 2022).
Soft computing algorithms that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) are
recent developments, and these algorithms have been used to solve
problems in several areas, including hydraulics and hydrology problems
(Ali and Günal, 2021; Azizi et al., 2022; Manzoor et al., 2021). However,
the application of AI tools in the groundwater field has been limited to
analyzing time series data for modeling fluctuations in groundwater
heads at specific monitoring points and performing lumped analyses for
the entire investigating areas for many years (Ao et al., 2021; Dey et al.,
2021; Manandhar et al., 2020; Roshni et al., 2022; Vadiati et al., 2022).
Despite several successful groundwater studies conducting lumped
time-series analyses, these AI models are commonly criticized for
requiring large amounts of high-resolution data to train the models and
for the lack of physics. From groundwater modelers’ viewpoint, the most
critical limitation of these AI models is the apparent lack of
physics-driven thinking in the approach employed by the numerical
models such as MODFLOW, SUTRA, and FEFLOW. Thus, AI has been a
bit of a challenge to become a catalyst for progress in the groundwater
field, especially among traditional numerical modelers.
However, recent developments in AI science could restructure the
use of AI tools in the groundwater field. A significant development is
that the AI models can now directly integrate physics-driven partial
differential equations (PDEs) into their computations (Faroughi et al.,
2022; Raissi et al., 2017). The additional constraints provided by the
governing equations, boundary conditions (BCs), and initial conditions
(ICs) can substantially reduce the training data required for AI models. A
recently developed physics-informed neural network (PINN) model can
solve PDEs successfully by integrating two algorithmic methods: deep
learning and automatic differentiation (AD) (Raissi et al., 2017). AD,
also called algorithmic differentiation, is a new method of computing
derivatives that has proved to be a powerful alternative to traditional
2
Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172
techniques, such as finite difference and symbolic derivations, which
have been used in computational statistics and neural network sciences
(Margossian, 2019). AD is a family of techniques analogous to back­
propagation that can efficiently calculate the derivatives of numerical
functions utilizing the chain-rule calculus (Baydin et al., 2018). The
reader is encouraged to review the cited sources for more detailed in­
formation about AD (e.g., Verma, 2000; Elliott, 2018; Baydin et al.,
2018; Margossian, 2019).
PINN model is currently attracting attention for solving a variety of
PDEs in a variety of fields, such as fluid mechanics (Cai et al., 2021;
Eivazi et al., 2022; Mahmoudabadbozchelou et al., 2022; Qiu et al.,
2022), geosciences (Lu and Mei, 2022; Zheng et al., 2020; Shen et al.,
2023), hydrology (Feng et al., 2023; Mahesh et al., 2022), and hy­
draulics (Raynaud et al., 2022; Walter et al., 2022). PINN models have
also been used for solving some relatively small and simple problems,
such as steady-state saturated groundwater flow (Tartakovsky et al.,
2018; Shadab et al., 2023), calibration of Richard’s Equation (Depina
et al., 2022), one and two-dimensional confined flow (Cuomo et al.,
2023), unconfined groundwater flow (Secci et al., 2024), and some
groundwater radial flow problems (Zhang et al., 2022).
The objective of this effort is to present a methodical explanation of
the PINN algorithm for solving groundwater flow equations and discuss
the advantages of PINN computational algorithms over conventional
groundwater models, such as MODFLOW. This article aims to elucidate
the various potentials that can make PINN a competitive AI-based
alternative to traditional groundwater models. This article emphasizes
the importance of researchers focusing on aspects beyond the accuracy
of PINN in solving partial differential equations already offered by
conventional models (e.g., MODFLOW). The article provides a quanti­
tative exploration and discussion of PINN’s running time as an advan­
tage over traditional models and introduces additional potential benefits
that merit further investigation in the future. To do that, this article uses
PINN to solve four classic groundwater problems. These problems
illustrate the use of different types of forcing and boundary conditions,
including uniform and nonuniform recharge, instantaneously changing
head, fixed head, and no-flow boundary conditions. All the problems are
non-dimensionalized to ensure the results are applicable to both small
and large-scale problems (Jazaei et al., 2014). The performance of the
PINN was verified by comparing the results with MODLFOW 2005,
MODFLOW-6, and MATLAB-based FD results.
2. Confined groundwater flow equation
The one-dimensional confined groundwater equation can be written
as (Jazaei et al., 2016):
∂φ′(x′, t′) ∂2 φ′(x′, t′)
′
− D′ − w′ = 0, x′ ∈ (0, L′), (1)
∂t ∂x′2
where, φ′(x′, t′) [L] is the groundwater head at the position, x′ [L], and
time, t′ [T]; D′ [L− 2 T − 1 ] is the diffusivity, w′ [LT− 1] is the sink/source
term, and L′ [L] is the length domain. In this study, we limited the time
domain to t ′ ∈ (0, SST), which SST refers to the moment at which the
flow effectively reaches the steady-state condition (Simpson et al., 2013;
Jazaei et al., 2014, 2017).
In this study, we non-dimensionalized Eq. (1) using the following
dimensionless parameters (Jazaei et al., 2017):
A.S.A. Ali et al. Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172

x′ φ′(x′, t′) t′ D′
x = ′, φ(x, t) = , and t= , (2) f = |MSEPDE + MSEIC + MSEBC | (4)
L φ′ L′
2

where, MSEPDE , MSEIC , and MSEBC indicate the mean squared error of
where, φ(x, t) is the dimensionless groundwater head, at the dimen­
the solution at the internal space and time of PDE (i.e., x ∈ (0, 1) and
sionless position, x, and time, t, and φ′ is the characteristic value of a t > 0), IC, and BC, respectively. To calculate these terms for problems in
dependent variable. Combining Eqs. (1) and (2), the non-dimensional Fig. 1, the information provided by the governing equation, Eq. (3), IC,
form of Eq. (1) can be written as: and BC is used as:
∂φ(x, t) ∂2 φ(x, t) N ⃒ ⃒2
(3) 1 ∑ ⃒∂ φ 2 ⃒
∂t
−
∂x2
− w = 0, x ∈ (0, 1),
MSEPDE = ⃒ ̂ (xi , ti ) − ∂ φ̂ (xi , ti )
− w⃒⃒ , (5)
N i=1 ⃒ ∂t ∂x 2

where, w = w′L′/D′φ′ (Jazaei et al., 2017). Eq. (3) was studied under four
classic initial (IC) and boundary (BC) conditions, as depicted in Fig. 1. 1 ∑N
MSEIC = ̂ (xi , 0)|2 , and
|φ(xi , 0) − φ (6)
All problems include a uniform IC produced by BCs. In Fig. 1(a), the N i=1
head at the BCs increases instantly without any recharge occurring. The
BCs in Fig. 1(b) are fixed, while a uniform recharge occurs throughout 1 ∑N

the system. The problem depicted in Fig. 1(c) has fixed BCs and a
non-uniformly (linearly) varying recharge. Fig. 1(d) includes fixed and
no-flow BCs, while uniform recharge occurs over the entire area. The
dotted red line is representative of the general transient head distribu­
tion under each condition. These problems were solved using a PINN
model and verified by the industrial-grade MODFLOW 2005 code.
3. Physics- informed neural network (PINN) model
The PINN model solves PDEs by combining deep neural networks
with an AD algorithm (Faroughi et al., 2022; Raissi et al., 2019). The AD
method is based on chain rules, as opposed to FD-based numerical de­
rivatives used, e.g., in MODFLOW (Hou et al., 2022; Mao et al., 2020).
AD allows encoding a PDE, e.g., Eq. (3), within a deep learning network
algorithm to find nonlinear relations between input parameters (e.g., x
and t) and output quantities (e.g., the derivatives in Eq. (3)), by lowering
a loss function (e.g., Eq. (4)) (Meng et al., 2020). These processes are
illustrated in Fig. 3. Interested readers are referred to the cited refer­
ences for a detailed description of the PINN method (Raissi et al., 2017,
2019).
The main advantage of PINN models is that, unlike other neural
network models, the loss function can be calculated independently of the
exact training or collocation point values owing to the additional in­
formation provided by the PDE, BC, and IC conditions. The loss function
of the PINN includes three terms that can be written as,
MSEBC = ̂ (0, ti )|2 + |φ(1, ti ) − φ
|φ(0, ti ) − φ ̂ (1, ti )|2 (7)
N i=1
where, xi ∈ (0, 1) , and ti > 0, φ ̂ denotes the solution predicted by the
PINN in each iteration at collocation points until the value of f is less
than a threshold value, ε, (f→0), and φ denotes known IC and BCs. As
shown in Eqs. (5)–(7) and represented in Fig. 2, there are three types of
collocation points within the time-space domains of the solution — in­
ternal PDE collocation points, (xi , ti ), where xi ∈ (0, 1) and ti > 0, IC
collocation points, (xi ,0), and BC collocation points, (0,ti ) and (1,ti ). The
subscript i denotes the ith collocation point. Fig. 2 schematically shows
the randomly distributed collocation points within the transient space-
time domains, once the system is yet in transient condition before
effectively asymptote to steady-state condition at t ≈ 0.5 [ − ], that are
used to train the PINN model.
PINN determines the derivative values of ∂ φ ̂ /∂t and ∂2 φ
̂ /∂x2 in Eq.
(3) through an AD approach (Baydin et al., 2018; Huang et al., 2021;
Rall and Corliss, 1996) and aims to find the best spatial and temporal
distributions of φ
̂ (xi , ti ) at the collocation points by minimizing the loss
function, f, (Eq. (4)).
In this study, the PINN model was used with a fully connected deep
neural network and the hyperbolic tangent (tanh) operation between its
layers (Ding et al., 2018; Lau and Lim, 2018). The basis of the fully
connected deep neural network was explained broadly by (Goodfellow
et al., 2016; Nabian et al., 2021). All PINN models used in this study
employ eight hidden layers with 20 neurons in each layer. The learning

Fig. 1. Four groundwater problems solved by PINN and MODFLOW 2005 with different forcing conditions as, a) the head at the left and right BCs increases instantly
without any recharge occurring, b) BCs are fixed, while a uniform recharge occurs throughout the system, c) BCs are fixed and a non-uniformly (linearly) varying
recharge occurs, and d) left BC is fixed and the right BC is no-flux with uniform recharge term. Dotted red lines and solid arrows represent transient groundwater head
distribution and aquifer recharge, respectively.

3
A.S.A. Ali et al. Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172

Fig. 2. Illustration of three types of collocation points, including internal PDE, IC, and BC points, distributed randomly throughout the space and time domains of the
PINN model.

Fig. 3. General computational scheme of a PINN model that combines a deep learning algorithm with an automatic differentiation feature to solve Eq. (3), the
governing equation of 1D non-dimensional groundwater flow (Cai et al., 2021).

rate was set to 0.01, and the weights and biases of the neural networks 4. Results
were determined and updated utilizing the Adam Optimizer (Bock and
Weiβ, 2019; Kingma and Ba, 2014). This section compares PINN solutions of the four groundwater flow

Table 1
Summary of collocation points, epochs, and forcing conditions used in various test problems in Fig. 1.
Problem in Fig. 1 Randomly distributed Collocation Points Epochs Recharge Term, w IC (x, 0) BC1 φ(0, t) BC2

Internal PDE BC IC

(a) 10,000 600 100 20,000 0 0 0.2 φ(1, t) = 0.7

(b) 10,000 1700 850 17,000 1 0.5 0.5 φ(0, t) = 0.5
(c) 20,000 14,000 7000 15,000 w =x 0.5 0.5 φ(0, t) = 0.5
)
(d) 10,000 700 350 15,000 1 0 0 ( ∂φ
=0
∂x |x=1

4
A.S.A. Ali et al. Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172

problems, shown in Fig. 1, with MODFLOW 2005 results. Table 1 sum­ Table 2
marizes the number of internal PDE, IC, and BC collocation points and Mean squared error between PINN and MODFLOW 2005 solutions for the four
epochs that control the number of passes of the entire dataset within test problems in Fig. 1.
each PINN for each problem (Brownlee, 2018). The governing equation Problem in Time, t MSE [− ] Problem in Time, t MSE [− ]
of all problems is Eq. (3), which has been solved by the different Fig. 1 [− ] Fig. 1 [− ]
recharge and BCs, as summarized in Table 1. These problems include (a) 0.07 1.68 × (c) 0.07 8.32 ×
uniform initial conditions and different forcing conditions, such as 10− 4 10− 8
uniform and nonuniform recharge with suddenly changing, fixed, or 0.15 3.15 × 0.15 5.58 ×
10− 6 10− 8
no-flow BCs.
0.50 3.47 × 0.50 1.20 ×
After training PINN models according to Table 1, both PINN and 10− 6 10− 8
MODFLOW 2005 were formulated to compute the solutions at 10,000 × (b) 0.07 2.19 × (d) 0.07 6.55 ×
10,000 uniformly distributed points within the non-dimensional space, 10− 7 10− 7
x ∈ [0, 1] and transient time domains, t ∈ [0, 0.5], before effectively 0.15 2.86 × 0.25 1.42 ×
10− 7 10− 6
reaching steady-state conditions. Fig. 4 illustrates the results at three 0.50 1.93 × 0.50 2.69 ×
different times: 0.07, 0.15, and 0.50, corresponding to the early, inter­ 10− 7 10− 6
mediate, and late (steady-state) stages of transition. Table 2 also com­
pares the solutions using mean squared error (MSE) values.

Fig. 4. Comparison of solutions performed by PINN and MODFLOW 2005 for four groundwater flow problems shown in Fig. 1 at various time steps (i.e., early,
intermediate, and late transition stages).

5
A.S.A. Ali et al.
5. Discussion and future directions
Scientists, engineers, and policymakers agree that recent AI advances
have significantly impacted their respective fields. Hence, they all strive
to challenge AI’s ability to provide novel solutions to their problems by
pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities. In surface hydrology, AI tools
have been used to study several problems since the late 1970s, including
rainfall-runoff modeling, streamflow modeling, and water quality
modeling (Czyczula Rudjord et al., 2022; Talei, 2022). AI tools inspire
surface hydrologists to improve AI applications in their problems. In
contrast, groundwater hydrologists have not yet viewed AI as a prom­
ising method for solving problems related to flow and contaminant
transport issues. The main reason is that the black-box nature of AI
models could not capture the groundwater flow physics. So far, the
application of AI in the groundwater field has been mostly limited to the
time series analysis of groundwater head fluctuations at individual
monitoring points (Bahmani and Ouarda, 2021; Momeneh and Nourani,
2022; Mozaffari et al., 2022; Rajaee et al., 2019; Vadiati et al., 2022).
These scalar applications could not develop vector-based flux informa­
tion, which is heavily relied upon by groundwater modelers in various
investigations. However, with the recent developments in the PINN
model, a new window of opportunity has opened for using AI to solve
groundwater flow PDEs with different initial and boundary conditions.
Table 4 presents a detailed comparison between the PINN and the
widely used MODFLOW model in groundwater science. By assessing
various criteria of both models, the table offers insights into PINN’s
limitations, advantages over MODFLOW, and its unexplored potential,
which is further elaborated upon below.
Potential and advantages of PINN: There are six main reasons why
PINN models have the potential to advance significantly in the
groundwater modeling field (Table 4). Firstly, PINN is not a mesh-based
solver (Zhang et al., 2022). In contrast to mesh-based models, such as
MODFLOW and FEFLOW, which only provide solutions at specific nodes
(that depend on grid discretization) and at particular time points (that
rely on time step), PINN models can provide the solution at any arbitrary
and continuous point and time (like analytical solutions). This charac­
teristic can help better represent groundwater dynamics when
high-resolution spatial and temporal information is required at specific
spatio-temporal scales, such as in the simulation of surface-groundwater
interactions in hyporheic zones. However, it should be noted that the
accuracy of the PINN model in capturing the physics of groundwater
flow is contingent upon training it using an optimal number of collo­
cation points in both time and space domains. Typically, the complexity
of a problem, including factors such as initial conditions (e.g., nonuni­
formity) and boundary conditions (e.g., time-varying), dictates the
suitable number of collocation points. Like other deep learning models,
this determination is made using iterative testing and refinement steps.
Thus, understanding the significance of each collocation point (i.e., in­
ternal PDE, IC, and BC collocation points) in solving the groundwater
flow problem can enhance the allocation of computational resources,
potentially leading to improved efficiency in PINN models. This aspect
certainly warrants further investigation.
The second advantage is that it is possible that PINN models might
not have the instability or drying cell issues that conventional ground­
water models have under certain conditions, such as a numerical layer
becoming thin or dry. Although the stability of PINN models in
groundwater problems has yet to be thoroughly investigated, the
absence of timestps and incremental space constraints suggests that they
could be free from conventional instability problems.
The third advantage is that the PINN models have the potential to
find solutions faster than numerical codes such as MODFLOW. Although
training PINN models may be more time-consuming than developing a
well-designed MODFLOW model, it is crucial to consider that once a
PINN model is trained, forecasting simulations can be more computa­
tionally efficient. Differences become more apparent when high spatial
and temporal resolution is necessary. With increasing time iterations,
6
Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172
traditional time-methods such as the forward Euler and the Crank-
Nicolson schemes exhibit a notable escalation in computational costs
(Zhang et al., 2022). The PINN models developed in this study were
executed by MATLAB, which is known to be slower than Fortran and
C++ compilers used by numerical modeling tools such as MODFLOW
(Andrews, 2012; Zhang, 1998). MATLAB is an interpreted language that
executes a code line by line through an interpreter. In contrast, Fortran is
compiled, with the entire code translated into machine code before
execution, contributing to its faster performance (De Rose and Padua,
1996).
In this study, we trained all four PINN models using MATLAB on a
personal computer with an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU with 2.60 GHz and
a 64-bit Windows 11 operating system. We were able to train each model
with fewer than five trials, and each try took less than 3.5 h. The speed of
developed PINN models was compared with MODFLOW 2005 and
MODFLOW 6 using PCG Solver. Table 3 summarizes the computational
performance data for all models that employed 10,000 spatial and
10,000 time steps before the flow relaxes into a steady-state condition.
PINN models run by MATLAB Compiler produced transient solutions
slightly slower than MODFLOW 2005 executed in Fortran. However,
MODFLOW 6 and the finite-difference model developed within MATLAB
were significantly slower. In the future, it should be possible to
dramatically improve the runtime of the PINN models by using Fortran
or C++ codes instead of the MATLAB coding environment.
The fifth advantage is that the PINN models are capable of providing
solutions at any particular time with a single calculation (like analytical
solutions), as opposed to MODFLOW models that require a series of
calculations starting from the initial condition and marching forward in
time until reaching the desired time or location. With effective and
appropriate use of this capability of PINN models, it is possible to reduce
the runtime significantly. Moreover, this capability allows for focused
analysis on specific temporal and spatial domains as needed, stream­
lining the modeling process and enhancing flexibility in addressing
targeted scenarios.
Finally, since AI tools are based on the principles of biological neu­
rons, as pointed out by recent investigations, it has a fascinating
evolutionary capability known as Curriculum Learning (Wang et al.,
2021). AI was conceived as a model of the human brain. Therefore, it
makes sense that the learning process can be patterned after how
humans (babies) learn, from simple to complex problems (Soviany et al.,
2022). This easy-to-hard training paradigm would allow the develop­
ment of simple AI groundwater models and later improve (or grow)
them to solve complex systems. Using this approach, an AI-based
groundwater model trained to solve simple problems has the potential
to be progressively re-trained to solve more complex problems.
Challenges and limitations of PINN: Despite the promising attri­
butes of PINN, it is important to acknowledge its current limitations and
challenges, specifically compared with conventional packages such as
MODFLOW (Table 4). PINN models still suffer from the limitations
inherent in all neural network models. In neural networks, overfitting
and underfitting are common challenges, and PINN models are no
exception. Additionally, PINN solutions must be tuned according to
several hyperparameters (e.g., learning rate, number of layers, and
number of neurons per layer). A poorly chosen set of hyperparameters
can adversely affect the performance of the model. Furthermore, The
Table 3
Comparing the PINN model runtime for four test problems with MODLFOW
2005, MODFLOW-6, and MATLAB-based FD models.
Models Running time to solve the problem in Fig. 1 (seconds)
(a) (b) (c) (d)
PINN 163 192 189 173
MODFLOW 2005 133 139 141 141
MODFLOW 6 4030 4030 4015 3975
MATLAB FD 6747 6421 7210 6870
A.S.A. Ali et al. Groundwater for Sustainable Development 25 (2024) 101172

Table 4 CRediT authorship contribution statement

Comparative assessment of PINN and MODFLOW.
Criteria MODFLOW PINN Ahmed Shakir Ali Ali: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original
draft, Validation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Farhad
Modeling Approach Finite Difference Artificial Neural
Network Jazaei: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Resources,
Mesh-based or meshless Mesh-based Meshless Conceptualization. T. Prabhakar Clement: Writing – review & editing,
Marching in time/space Time-stepping/ Direct/Direct Supervision, Conceptualization. Brian Waldron: Writing – review &
incremental editing, Supervision, Conceptualization.
Input data dependency Low-high High
Incorporation of physics Yes Yes
Establishment in industry/academia High/High None/Low
The complexity of problems solved Simple to complex Simple Declaration of competing interest
Efficiency in model setup and Low to high High due to
preparation for running training
Running time Lower than PINN Higher than
The authors declare the following financial interests/personal re­
MODFLOW lationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:
Computational resource Low to high High Prabhakar Clement reports financial support was provided by National
Stability issues Low to high Unknown Science Foundation, United States.

training process for PINNs can become exceedingly time-consuming and
computationally demanding when dealing with large and intricate ar­
chitectures, such as those involving numerous layers and neurons. In
order to accomplish this, it is necessary to utilize specialized computa­
tional resources, which are often quite costly. When compared to
MODFLOW, which can typically be run on standard computer configu­
rations in recent years, the training of PINN may require access to
expensive computing infrastructure. The discrepancy in resource re­
quirements underscores the practical challenges associated with
implementing PINN models, particularly in comparison with more
established alternatives such as MODFLOW.
6. Conclusion
Technology growth over the past decade has indicated that AI will
continue to make significant advances. In light of these facts, ground­
water hydrologists need to develop the application of PINN models to
handle future groundwater problems. Both industry professionals and
academicians have widely used and trusted MODFLOW due to its
robustness and established methodologies, during the last decades. Even
though PINN has not yet established itself as a trustworthy package, it
presents a promising solution to some of the challenges inherent in
MODFLOW. There are several steps that need to be taken in order to
enhance its reputation and application. Firstly, PINN’s solution should
be rigorously validated and verified across diverse and complex
groundwater modeling scenarios (e.g., varying stresses and heteroge­
neity) in order to ensure its accuracy and performance. Thus, a collab­
oration between groundwater modelers, computer scientists, and
domain experts is essential for iteratively improving PINN and estab­
lishing it as a trusted tool, of course, with a healthy dose of skepticism
and optimism. Furthermore, comprehensive documentation and user
support should be provided to facilitate its adoption and implementation
within the groundwater modeling community. With these concerted
efforts, PINN may be able to evolve into a robust and widely used
groundwater modeling package, complementing and potentially
exceeding the capabilities of traditional approaches such as MODFLOW.
Funding
The Herff College of Engineering at the University of Memphis sup­
ported ASAA through its graduate student assistantship program. TPC
efforts were partly supported by a research grant awarded by the Na­
tional Science Foundation (R11-Track2 IGM project award: OIA
2019561). FJ also kindly acknowledges the partial summer support
provided by the IGM project.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
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