A modification of previously published solutions regarding the spatial variation of hydraulic heads is discussed whereby the semivariogram of increments of head residuals (termed head residual increments HRIs) are related to the variance and integral scale of the transmissivity field. A first-order solution is developed for the case of a transmissivity field which is isotropic and whose second-order behavior can be characterized by an exponential covariance structure. The estimates of the variance &sgr;Y2 and the integral scale &lgr; of the log transmissivity field are then obtained via fitting a theoretical semivariogram for the HRI to its sample semivariogram. This approach is applied to head data sampled from a series of two-dimensional, simulated aquifers with isotropic, exponential covariance structures and varying degrees of heterogeneity (&sgr;Y2=0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 5.0). The results show that this method provided reliable estimates for both &lgr; and &sgr;Y2 in aquifers with the value of &sgr;Y2 up to 2.0, but the errors in those estimates were higher for &sgr;Y2 equal to 5.0. It is also demonstrated through numerical experiments and theoretical arguments that the head residual increments will provide a sample semivariogram with a lower variance than will the use of the head residuals without calculation of increments. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union