Comparison of three methods of hydrogeological parameter estimation in leaky aquifers using transient flow pumping tests

Accurate knowledge of hydrogeological parameters is essential for groundwater modeling, protection and remediation. Three methods (type curve fitting method, inflection point method and global curve‐fitting method (GCFM)) which are frequently applied in the estimation of leaky aquifer parameters were compared using synthetic pumping tests. The results revealed GCFM could provide best parameter estimation among the three methods with fewer uncertainties associated with the processes of parameter estimation. GCFM was also found to be both time saving and of low cost and is thus more preferable for hydrogeological parameter estimation than the other two methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new method for the interpretation of pumping tests in leaky aquifers

A novel methodology for the interpretation of pumping tests in leaky aquifer systems, referred to as the double inflection point (DIP) method, is presented. The method is based on the analysis of the first and second derivatives of the drawdown with respect to log time for the estimation of the flow parameters. Like commonly used analysis procedures, such as the type-curve approach developed by Walton (1962) and the inflection point method developed by Hantush (1956), the mathematical development of the DIP method is based on the assumption of homogeneity of the leaky aquifer layers. However, contrary to the two methods developed by Hantush and Walton, the new method does not need any fitting process. In homogeneous media, the two classic methods and the one proposed here provide exact results for transmissivity, storativity, and leakage factor when aquifer storage is neglected and the recharging aquifer is unperturbed. The real advantage of the DIP method comes when applying all methods independently to a test in a heterogeneous aquifer, where each method yields parameter values that are weighted differently, and thus each method provides different information about the heterogeneity distribution. Therefore, the methods are complementary and not competitive. In particular, the combination of the DIP method and Hantush method is shown to lead to the identification of contrasts between the local transmissivity in the vicinity of the well and the equivalent transmissivity of the perturbed aquifer volume.     

Air and water flows induced by pumping tests in unconfined aquifers with low‐permeability zones

Air flows from the atmosphere into an unconfined aquifer when the water table falls during pumping tests. Pumping test results in unconfined aquifers may be significantly affected by low‐permeability zones (LPZs) near the initial water table position, because they restrict the downward movement of air. A transient, three‐dimensional air–water two‐phase flow model is employed to investigate numerically the effects of local heterogeneity on pumping test results in unconfined aquifers. Two cases of local heterogeneities are considered herein: a LPZ around the pumping well and on one side of the pumping well. Results show that the drawdown with the LPZ is significantly greater than that of the homogeneous aquifer. The differences in drawdown are the most significant at intermediate times and gradually diminish at later times. The LPZ significantly reduces air flow from the atmosphere to the aquifer. The pore air velocity in the LPZ is very low. The air pressure at the observation point under the LPZ when air begins to enter is significantly lower than the air pressure of the homogeneous aquifer at the same point. After that, the air pressure increases quickly and then increases slowly. The time for the air pressure to reach the atmospheric pressure is significantly longer. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal and sustainable extraction of groundwater in coastal aquifers

Four examples are investigated for the optimal and sustainable extraction of groundwater from a coastal aquifer under the threat of seawater intrusion. The objectives and constraints of these management scenarios include maximizing the total volume of water pumped, maximizing the profit of selling water, minimizing the operational and water treatment costs, minimizing the salt concentration of the pumped water, and controlling the drawdown limits. The physical model is based on the density-dependent advective-dispersive solute transport model. Genetic algorithm is used as the optimization tool. The models are tested on a hypothetical confined aquifer with four pumping wells located at various depths. These solutions establish the feasibility of simulating various management scenarios under complex three-dimensional flow and transport processes in coastal aquifers for the optimal and sustainable use of groundwater.     

Application of analytical solution for stream depletion due to groundwater pumping in Gapcheon watershed,South Korea

A number of groundwater wells for agricultural activity, including rice farming and greenhouses, have been developed near streams over the past 20 years in South Korea. The result of a stream depletion calculation using an analytical solution of complimentary error function shows that groundwater pumping at 1949 wells drilled in the Gapcheon watershed can produce stream depletion. This amount is estimated at about 7% of annual baseflow and reaches as high as 18% of monthly baseflow during the maximum agricultural water consumption period in May. Agricultural wells have a larger effect on stream depletion than domestic wells because of their higher pumping rate. Stream depletion from agricultural wells located within 200 m from a stream represents 65% of the total depletion rate. Agricultural water policy for water use at nearby streams should be changed to reduce stream depletion and thereby maintain sustainable water development in South Korea. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two-dimensional stochastic analysis of flow in leaky confined aquifers subject to spatial and periodic leakage

This paper addresses the issue of flow in heterogeneous leaky confined aquifers subject to leakage. The leakage into the confined aquifer is driven by spatial and periodic fluctuations of water table in an overlying phreatic aquifer. The introduction of leakage leads to non-uniformity in the mean head gradient and results in nonstationarity in hydraulic head and velocity fields. Therefore, a nonstationary spectral approach based on Fourier–Stieltjes representations for the perturbed quantities is adopted to account for the spatial variability of nonstationary head fields. Closed-form expressions for the variances of hydraulic head and specific discharge are developed in terms of statistical properties of hydraulic parameters. The results indicate that the spatiotemporal variations in leakage leads to enhanced variability of the hydraulic head and of the specific discharge, which increase with distance from any arbitrary reference point. The coefficient of leakage and the spatial structure of log transmissivity field and of the amplitude of water table fluctuation are critical in quantifying the variability of the hydraulic head and of the specific discharge.     

Optimal design of a regional seismological network for the Arab countries

The Arab countries cover a large portion of the African and Arabian plates, a region characterized by seismic activity along complex continental collision zones, active seafloor spreading, rifting, and intraplate earthquakes. Establishing a standardized regional seismic network in these countries, then, is of great importance. Considerable effort of some Arab countries and UNESCO under project PAMERAR is under way to achieve this goal. A design for the spatial distribution of a regional seismic network in the area, based on a D-optimal planning criterion, is proposed in this paper. The method, which involves optimizing the geographical locations of stations, is based on the probability of earthquake occurrence at a given point in the seismic region, travel times of seismic waves, and minimization of the ellipsoid volume of earthquake location errors.     

Optimal selection of number and location of rainfall gauges for areal rainfall estimation using geostatistics and simulated annealing

This paper presents a method for establishing an optimal network design for the estimation of areal averages of rainfall events. The problem consists of minimising an objective function which includes both the accuracy of the areal mean estimation (as expressed by the kriging variance of estimation) and the economic cost of the data collection. The well known geostatistical variance-reduction method is used in combination with simulated annealing as an algorithm of minimisation. This methodology has several advantages which will be demonstrated in this paper. Several synthetic examples are shown in order to illustrate the performance of the methodology in two different optimisation problems: the optimal selection of a subset from a set of stations that already exist and the optimal augmentation of a previously existing network.     

Convective stability analysis of the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in deep saline aquifers

Deep saline aquifers are one of the most suitable geologic formations for carbon sequestration. The linear and global stability analysis of the time-dependent density-driven convection in deep saline aquifers is presented for long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂). The convective mixing that can greatly accelerate the CO₂ dissolution into saline aquifers arises because the density of brine increases upon the dissolution of CO₂ and such a density difference may induce instability. The effects of anisotropic permeability on the stability criteria, such as the critical time for the appearance of convective phenomena and the critical wavelength of the most unstable perturbation, are investigated with linear and global stability analysis. The linear stability analysis provides a sufficient condition for instability while the global stability analysis yields a sufficient condition for stability. The results obtained from these two approaches are not exactly the same but show a consistent trend, both indicating that the anisotropic system becomes more unstable when either the vertical or horizontal permeability increases.     

Optimal topology design of replaceable bar dampers of a reticulated shell based on sensitivity analysis

In this study,a method for control of reticulated shells is proposed and its practicality is demonstrated.The control is implemented by replacing selected bars of the shell with passive viscoelastic dampers.By applying the eigenvalue perturbation technique and the earthquake spectrum concept,the sensitivities of various topologies of the shell are analyzed,and the optimal topology is determined by taking their symmetries into consideration.The results of this research show that common damper topologies are not effective for all types of responses and recorded earthquakes.The optimal topology identifi ed requires a minimal number of dampers for each type of earthquake record.The displacement control effect of the dynamic responses of the optimal topology is 10% – 20%; the acceleration control effect is also about 10% – 20%; and the axial force control effect is as much as 30% – 45%.Furthermore,the incremental dynamic analysis(IDA) method is used to investigate the stability of the controlled shell.The results show that the dynamic stability of the controlled shell is well preserved when it is vibrated under vibration and is better than the uncontrolled shell.The ultimate load increased by 10% and the elements entered into the plastic stage when the peak acceleration reached 580 Gal,which is 200 Gal larger than the uncontrolled shell.     

Inverse modeling for seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers: Insights about parameter sensitivities,variances, correlations and estimation procedures derived from the Henry problem

Inverse modeling studies employing data collected from the classic Henry seawater intrusion problem give insight into several important aspects of inverse modeling of seawater intrusion problems and effective measurement strategies for estimation of parameters for seawater intrusion. Despite the simplicity of the Henry problem, it embodies the behavior of a typical seawater intrusion situation in a single aquifer. Data collected from the numerical problem solution are employed without added noise in order to focus on the aspects of inverse modeling strategies dictated by the physics of variable-density flow and solute transport during seawater intrusion. Covariances of model parameters that can be estimated are strongly dependent on the physics. The insights gained from this type of analysis may be directly applied to field problems in the presence of data errors, using standard inverse modeling approaches to deal with uncertainty in data.     

RC框架结构直接基于位移的抗震优化设计方法

探讨了静力弹塑性分析验证过程中遇到的几种情况及其产生原因,指出建筑结构设计方案在基于位移的抗震设计中的重要性。从框架结构的侧移模式出发,导出结构一定性能水平的目标顶点位移,建立结构目标顶点位移与等效位移的关系式,根据位移反应谱,由等效位移推出框架结构在各性能水平的目标周期。然后,由pushover曲线确定结构刚度退化机理,导出结构各性能水平相应的自振周期比例关系,根据结构各性能水平自振周期与目标周期的关系确定结构最优设计方案。通过例题加以验证,说明了此设计方法的可行性。     

Sensitivity analysis of a no-crossflow model for the transient flowmeter test

 Logarithmic sensitivities and plausible relative errors are studied in a simple no-crossflow model of a transient flowmeter test (TFMT). This model is identical to the model of a constant-rate pumping test conducted on a fully penetrating well with wellbore storage, surrounded by a thick skin zone, and situated in a homogeneous confined aquifer. The sensitivities of wellbore drawdown and wellface flowrate to aquifer and skin parameters are independent of the pumping rate. However, the plausible relative errors in the aquifer and skin parameters estimated from drawdown and wellface flowrate data can be proportionally decreased by increasing the pumping rate. The plausible relative errors vary by many orders of magnitude from the beginning of the TFMT. The practically important flowrate and drawdown measurements in this test, for which the plausible relative errors vary by less than one order of magnitude from the minimum plausible relative errors, can begin approximately when the dimensionless wellface flowrate exceeds q _D =q/Q≈0.4. During most of this stage of the test, the plausible relative errors in aquifer hydraulic conductivity (K _a ) are generally an order of magnitude smaller than those in aquifer specific storativity. The plausible relative errors in the skin hydraulic conductivity (K _s ) are generally larger than the plausible relative errors in the aquifer specific storativity when the thick skin is normal (K _s >K _a ) and smaller when the thick skin is damaged (K _s <K _a ). The specific storativity of the skin zone would be so biased that one should not even attempt to estimate it from the TFMT. We acknowledge Wiebe H. van der Molen for recommending the De Hoog algorithm and sharing his code. This research was partially supported by the US Geological Survey, USGS Agreement #1434-HQ-96-GR-02689 and North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute, WRRI Project #70165.     

Data-worth analysis for multiobjective optimal design of pump-and-treat remediation systems

The design and the management of pump-and-treat (PAT) remediation systems for contaminated aquifers under uncertain hydrogeological settings and parameters often involve decisions that trade off cost optimality against reliability. Both design objectives can be improved by planning site characterization programs that reduce subsurface parameter uncertainty. However, the cost for subsurface investigation often weighs heavily upon the budget of the remedial action and must thus be taken into account in the trade-off analysis. In this paper, we develop a stochastic data-worth framework with the purpose of estimating the economic opportunity of subsurface investigation programs. Since the spatial distribution of hydraulic conductivity is most often the major source of uncertainty, we focus on the direct sampling of hydraulic conductivity at prescribed locations of the aquifer. The data worth of hydraulic conductivity measurements is estimated from the reduction of the overall management cost ensuing from the reduction in parameter uncertainty obtained from sampling. The overall cost is estimated as the expected value of the cost of installing and operating the PAT system plus penalties incurred due to violations of cleanup goals and constraints. The crucial point of the data-worth framework is represented by the so-called pre-posterior analysis. Here, the tradeoff between decreasing overall costs and increasing site-investigation budgets is assessed to determine a management strategy proposed on the basis of the information available at the start of remediation. The goal of the pre-posterior analysis is to indicate whether the proposed management strategy should be implemented as is, or re-designed on the basis of additional data collected with a particular site-investigation program. The study indicates that the value of information is ultimately related to the estimates of cleanup target violations and decision makers’ degree of risk-aversion.     

Pseudo‐dynamic tests of a full‐scale CFT/BRB frame—Part I: Specimen design,experiment and analysis

A series of pseudo‐dynamic tests (PDTs) of a full‐scale 3‐story 3‐bay buckling‐restrained braced frame (BRBF) using concrete‐filled tube columns was tested in the Taiwan National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering using networked PDT techniques in October 2003. During the tests, real‐time experimental responses and video were webcasted to Internet viewers. The input ground motions adopted for the PDTs were chosen from the 1999 Chi‐Chi and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquakes and scaled to represent three seismic hazard levels. This paper is in two parts, focusing on the investigations of the overall structure and the local members. This paper constitutes Part I and discusses the design, analytical investigations, and key experimental results of the specimen frame, such as the buckling of the brace‐to‐gusset joints. Part II of the paper, the companion paper, describes the gusset stiffening schemes and detailed experimental behavior of the BRBs and their connections. Experimental peak inter‐story drifts of 0.019 and 0.023 radians, prescribed for the design basis and the maximum credible earthquakes, respectively, are within the target design limits of 0.020 and 0.025 radians. These tests confirmed that the PISA3D and OpenSees nonlinear structural analysis computer programs can simulate the experimental peak shears and floor displacements well. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于OpenSees的钢筋混凝土桥墩拟静力试验数值分析

以4个呈弯曲破坏形态的圆形钢筋混凝土桥墩的拟静力试验结果为依据,基于OpenSees中的Beamwith Hinges Element单元,建立了相应的桥墩滞回分析纤维单元模型。由模拟结果与试验结果对比可知,所建立的纤维单元模型对桥墩的骨架曲线及滞回曲线都有良好的模拟效果,且能体现桥墩在反复加载过程中刚度、强度退化现象,表明了模型的有效性。     

Identifying and characterizing solution conduits in karst aquifers through geospatial (GIS) analysis of porosity from borehole imagery: An example from the Biscayne aquifer,South Florida (USA)

We apply geospatial analysis to borehole imagery in an effort to develop new techniques to evaluate the spatial distribution and internal structure of karst conduits. Remote sensing software is used to classify a high resolution, digital borehole image of limestone bedrock from the Biscayne aquifer (South Florida, USA) into a binary image divided into cells of rock matrix and pores. Within a GIS, 2D porosity is calculated for a series of rectangular sampling windows placed over the binary image and then plotted as a function of depth. Potential conduits that intersect the borehole are identified as peaks of high porosity. A second GIS technique identifies a conduit as a continuous object that spans the entire borehole width. According to these criteria, geospatial analysis reveals ∼10 discrete conduits along the ∼15 m borehole image. Continuous sampling of the geologic medium intersected by the borehole provides insight into the internal structure of karst aquifers and the evolution of karst features. Most importantly, this pilot study demonstrates that GIS-based techniques are capable of quantifying the depths, dimensions, shapes, apertures and connectivity of potential conduits, physical attributes that impact flow in karst aquifers.     

Experimental and numerical analysis of MASW tests for detection of buried timber trestles

This paper presents results from multi-channel analysis surface waves (MASW) tests conducted to locate buried timber trestles in two different sections (A and B) of an earth embankment. For section A, the location of the trestles is known as well as the soil properties; thus, it is used for calibration purposes. Conversely, the location of the timber trestles is unknown for section B. A seismic array of 24 geophones with a spacing of 0.5 m is used for surface-wave measurements. Different signal processing techniques are used for data analysis: dispersion curves, power spectral functions, frequency-spectra contour plots, two-dimensional-Fourier transform, and the wavelet transform. A new procedure is proposed for the surface location of buried trestles, which is based on the use of the normalized average power energy plot. Finite-element numerical simulations of MASW tests on layered and homogeneous media with and without buried trestles are performed to support experimental results and to explain the wave–trestle interaction. The numerical simulations show that a buried trestle induces vibration amplifications at the surface in front of its location but vibration attenuation immediately after. These effects, however, are observed only if the embedment depth of timber trestle is smaller than one third of the wavelength. Experimental and numerical results show that the results from MASW tests can be successfully used to define the surface location of decayed buried trestles.