This short video discusses what it means to calibrate a groundwater (or other) model. Calibration implies uniqueness. The quest for uniqueness is not a quest for truth. The uniqueness of a solution of an ill-posed inverse problem requires regularization. If properly applied, regularization yields a solution to that problem which is of minimized error variance. However, the potential for error in a calibrated parameter field, and in model predictions made by a calibrated model, can still be high.
Presented by Dr John Doherty