On fractal nature of groundwater level fluctuations due to rainfall process.

Hourly resolution time series of groundwater level fluctuations are analyzed after removing the seasonal cycle. It is found that fluctuations of groundwater levels have fractal scaling and a persistent behavior. We show also that groundwater level fluctuations exhibit non-Gaussian heavy tailed probability distribution that is well fitted by the Lévy stable distribution. Implications of the present results on the groundwater system modeling as a fractional Lévy motion and the connection with the anomalous diffusion inside the soil are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]