**3. Methods**

This section describes the methodology to meet the objectives of the paper. Section 3.1 provides a description of the modelling experiments used to address objectives 1 and 2. In particular, the experiments contribute to 1(a) testing the theory and the model by comparison with a numerical model; 1(b) implementing the model for the irrigation whole-of-life; 2(a) trialling the principle of superposition of recharge models in response to individual actions over the irrigation whole-of-life; and 2(b) seeking simple conceptual models that can approximate the recharge distribution for individual actions and in particular the linear reservoir model.

Sections 3.2 and 3.3 describe modelling experiments that contribute to objective 2; namely:


Sections 3.4 and 3.5 contribute to objective 3 by providing information to support the calibration of integrated models for application to scenario modelling.
