Combining pump-and-treat and physical barriers for contaminant plume control

A detailed analysis is presented of the hydraulic efficiency of plume management alternatives that combine a conventional pump-and-treat system with vertical, physical hydraulic barriers such as slurry walls or sheet piles. Various design settings are examined for their potential to reduce the pumping rate needed to obtain a complete capture of a given contaminated area. Using established modeling techniques for flow and transport, those barrier configurations (specified by location, shape, and length) that yield a maximum reduction of the pumping rate are identified assuming homogeneous aquifer conditions. Selected configurations are further analyzed concerning their hydraulic performance under heterogeneous aquifer conditions by means of a stochastic approach (Monte Carlo simulations) with aquifer transmissivity as a random space function. The results show that physical barriers are an appropriate means to decrease expected (mean) pumping rates, as well as the variance of the corresponding pumping rate distribution at any given degree of heterogeneity. The methodology presented can be transferred easily to other aquifer scenarios, provided some basic premises are fulfilled, and may serve as a basis for reducing the pumping rate in existing pump-and-treat systems.     

An analytical approach to capture zone delineation for a well near a stream with a leaky layer

Abstract

An analytical solution is developed to delineate the capture zone of a pumping well in an aquifer with a regional flow perpendicular to a stream, assuming a leaky layer between the stream and the aquifer. Three different scenarios are considered for different pumping rates. At low pumping rates, the capture zone boundary will be completely contained in the aquifer. At medium pumping rates, the tip of the capture zone boundary will intrude into the leaky layer. Under these two scenarios, all the pumped water is supplied from the regional groundwater flow in the aquifer. At high pumping rates, however, the capture zone boundary intersects the stream and pumped water is supplied from both the aquifer and the stream. The two critical pumping rates which separate these three scenarios, as well as the proportion of pumped water from the stream and the aquifer, are determined for different hydraulic settings.

Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor A. Koussis

Citation Asadi-Aghbolaghi, M., Rakhshandehroo, G.R., and Kompani-Zare, M., 2013. An analytical approach to capture zone delineation for a well near a stream with a leaky layer. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (8), 1813–1823.     

Use of Groundwater Level Fluctuations near an Operating Water Supply Well to Estimate Aquifer Transmissivity

We developed a method to estimate aquifer transmissivity from the hydraulic-head data associated with the normal cyclic operation of a water supply well thus avoiding the need for interrupting the water supply associated with a traditional aquifer test. The method is based on an analytical solution that relates the aquifer's transmissivity to the standard deviation of the hydraulic-head fluctuations in one or more observation wells that are due to the periodic pumping of the production well. We analyzed the resulting analytical solution and demonstrated that when the observation wells are located near the pumping well, the solution has a simple, Dupuit like form. Numerical analysis demonstrates that the analytical solution can also be used for a quasi-periodic pumping of the supply well. Simulation of cyclic pumping in a statistically heterogeneous medium confirms that the method is suitable for analyzing the transmissivity of weakly or moderately heterogeneous aquifers. If only one observation well is available, and the shift in the phase of hydraulic-head oscillations between the pumping well and the observation well is not identifiable. Prior knowledge of aquifer's hydraulic diffusivity is required to obtain the value of the aquifer transmissivity.     

Estimation of spatial variability of aquifer parameters from geophysical methods: a case study of Sindhudurg district,Maharashtra, India

Accurate estimation of aquifer parameters, especially from crystalline hard rock area, assumes a special significance for management of groundwater resources. The aquifer parameters are usually estimated through pumping tests carried out on water wells. While it may be costly and time consuming for carrying out pumping tests at a number of sites, the application of geophysical methods in combination with hydro-geochemical information proves to be potential and cost effective to estimate aquifer parameters. Here a method to estimate aquifer parameters such as hydraulic conductivity, formation factor, porosity and transmissivity is presented by utilizing electrical conductivity values analysed via hydro-geochemical analysis of existing wells and the respective vertical electrical sounding (VES) points of Sindhudurg district, western Maharashtra, India. Further, prior to interpolating the distribution of aquifer parameters of the study area, variogram modelling was carried out using data driven techniques of kriging, automatic relevance determination based Bayesian neural networks (ARD-BNN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy neural networks (ANFIS). In total, four variogram model fitting techniques such as spherical, exponential, ARD-BNN and ANFIS were compared. According to the obtained results, the spherical variogram model in interpolating transmissivity, ARD-BNN variogram model in interpolating porosity, exponential variogram model in interpolating aquifer thickness and ANFIS variogram model in interpolating hydraulic conductivity outperformed rest of the variogram models. Accordingly, the accurate aquifer parameters maps of the study area were produced by using the best variogram model. The present results suggest that there are relatively high value of hydraulic conductivity, porosity and transmissivity at Parule, Mogarne, Kudal, and Zarap, which would be useful to characterize the aquifer system over western Maharashtra.     

Geophysical Assessment of Groundwater Potential: A Case Study from Mian Channu Area,Pakistan

An integrated study using geophysical method in combination with pumping tests and geochemical method was carried out to delineate groundwater potential zones in Mian Channu area of Pakistan. Vertical electrical soundings (VES) using Schlumberger configuration with maximum current electrode spacing (AB/2 = 200 m) were conducted at 50 stations and 10 pumping tests at borehole sites were performed in close proximity to 10 of the VES stations. The aim of this study is to establish a correlation between the hydraulic parameters obtained from geophysical method and pumping tests so that the aquifer potential can be estimated from the geoelectrical surface measurements where no pumping tests exist. The aquifer parameters, namely, transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity were estimated from Dar Zarrouyk parameters by interpreting the layer parameters such as true resistivities and thicknesses. Geoelectrical succession of five‐layer strata (i.e., topsoil, clay, clay sand, sand, and sand gravel) with sand as a dominant lithology was found in the study area. Physicochemical parameters interpreted by World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization were well correlated with the aquifer parameters obtained by geoelectrical method and pumping tests. The aquifer potential zones identified by modeled resistivity, Dar Zarrouk parameters, pumped aquifer parameters, and physicochemical parameters reveal that sand and gravel sand with high values of transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity are highly promising water bearing layers in northwest of the study area. Strong correlation between estimated and pumped aquifer parameters suggest that, in case of sparse well data, geophysical technique is useful to estimate the hydraulic potential of the aquifer with varying lithology.     

An inverse procedure to estimate transmissivity from heads and SP signals

Experimental hydraulic heads and electrical (self-potential) signals associated with a pumping test were used in an inverse model to estimate the transmissivity distribution of a real aquifer. Several works reported in the literature show that there is a relatively good linear relationship between the hydraulic heads in the aquifer and electrical signals measured at the ground surface. In this experimental test field, first, the current coupling coefficient was determined by the best fit between experimental and modeled self-potential signals at the end of the pumping phase. Soon afterward, with the hydraulic heads obtained from the self-potential signals, the transmissivity distribution of the aquifer was conditioned by means an inverse model based on the successive linear estimator (SLE). To further substantiate the estimated T field from the SLE analysis, we analyzed the drawdown rate, the derivative of the drawdown with respect to the ln(t), because the drawdown rate is highly sensitive to the variability in the transmissivity field. In our opinion, these results show that self-potential signals allow the monitoring of subsurface flow in the course of pumping experiments, and that electrical potentials serve as a good complement to piezometric observations to condition and characterize the transmissivity distribution of an aquifer.     

Reducing Groundwater Pumping Cost Using Alternate Pulsed Pumping

This paper deals with water pumping cost minimization, in a confined infinite aquifer, proposing an alternate pulsed pumping schedule. The transient flow analysis is conducted for two wells with equal pumping rates. Specifically, two pumping schedules are analytically compared. In the first case, well users pump simultaneously, and in the second one they cooperate so that they pump alternately. This paper proves that the proposed alternate pumping schedule works as a stabilizer, reducing the high hydraulic drawdowns values, regardless of the aquifer characteristics. Moreover, pumping alternately is better in terms of pumping cost, compared to simultaneous pumping, though benefit become negligible as distance between wells becomes large. Two simplified equations are proposed, one to find the difference of the hydraulic drawdowns between the two pumping schedules and the other one to find the economic benefit of each well from cooperation. The equations are finally applied to a number of cases and their results are compared to the results obtained from an algorithm created to calculate the hydraulic drawdowns and the pumping cost, using the Theis equation. The results can be very useful in irrigation scheduling, as they can be applied to systems of well users/farmers, to reduce pumping cost.     

Interpretation of Pumping Tests in Heterogeneous Aquifers with Constant Head Boundary

This paper investigates the impact of heterogeneity of the transmissivity field on the interpretation of steady-state pumping test data from aquifer systems delimited by constant head boundaries such as aquifers adjacent to lakes or rivers. Spatially variable transmissivity fields are randomly generated and used to simulate the drawdown due to a pumping well located at different distances from a constant head boundary. The steady-state drawdown simulated at different observation wells are then interpreted using the Hantush method (Hantush 1959). The numerical simulations show that, in contrast to the case of infinite aquifer domains, the interpreted transmissivity varies depending on well locations and the separation distance between pumping well and boundary relative to the correlation length. The ensemble-averaged estimated transmissivity varies between the geometric mean and the arithmetic mean, and can even exceed the arithmetic mean in a narrow domain adjacent to the boundary. It approaches the geometric mean of the underlying transmissivity field only if the distance between the pumping well is more than 20 times the characteristic length of the transmissivity field.     

Joint simulation of transmissivity and storativity fields conditional to steady-state and transient hydraulic head data

The self-calibrated method has been extended for the generation of equally likely realizations of transmissivity and storativity conditional to transmissivity and storativity data and to steady-state and transient hydraulic head data. Conditioning to transmissivity and storativity data is achieved by means of standard geostatistical co-simulation algorithms, whereas conditioning to hydraulic head data, given its non-linear relation to transmissivity and storativity, is achieved through non-linear optimization, similar to standard inverse algorithms. The algorithm is demonstrated in a synthetic study based on data from the WIPP site in New Mexico. Seven alternative scenarios are investigated, generating 100 realizations for each of them. The differences among the scenarios range from the number of conditioning data, to their spatial configuration, to the pumping strategies at the pumping wells. In all scenarios, the self-calibrated algorithm is able to generate transmissivity–storativity realization couples conditional to all the sample data. For the specific case studied here the results are not surprising. Of the piezometric head data, the steady-state values are the most consequential for transmissivity characterization. Conditioning to transient head data only introduces local adjustments on the transmissivity fields and serves to improve the characterization of the storativity fields.     

Effects of Improper Characterization of Aquifer Thickness on Estimates of Hydraulic Conductivity from Pumping Tests

Pumping test data for surficial aquifers are commonly analyzed under the assumption that the base of the aquifer corresponds to the bottom of the test wells (i.e., the aquifer is truncated). This practice can lead to inaccurate hydraulic conductivity estimates, resulting from the use of low saturated thickness values with transmissivity estimates, and not accounting for the effects of partially penetrating wells. Theoretical time-drawdown data were generated at an observation well in a hypothetical unconfined aquifer for various values of saturated thickness and were analyzed by standard curve-matching techniques. The base of the aquifer was assumed to be the bottom of the pumping and observation wells. The overestimation of horizontal hydraulic conductivity was found to be directly proportional to the error in assumed saturated thickness, and to the (actual) ratio of vertical to horizontal hydraulic conductivity (K_v/K_h). Inaccurately high estimates of hydraulic conductivity obtained by aquifer truncation can lead to overestimates of ground water velocity and contaminant plume spreading, narrow capture zone configuration estimates, and overestimates of available ground water resources.     

The unusual and large drawdown response of buried-valley aquifers to pumping

The buried-valley aquifers that are common in the glacial deposits of the northern hemisphere are a typical case of the strip aquifers that occur in many parts of the world. Pumping from a narrow strip aquifer leads to much greater drawdown and much more distant drawdown effects then would occur in a sheet aquifer with a similar transmissivity and storage coefficient. Widely used theories for radial flow to wells, such as the Theis equation, are not appropriate for narrow strip aquifers. Previously published theory for flow to wells in semiconfined strip aquifers is reviewed and a practical format of the type curves for pumping-test analysis is described. The drawdown response of strip aquifers to pumping tests is distinctive, especially for observation wells near the pumped well. A case study is presented, based on extensive pumping test experience for the Estevan Valley Aquifer in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. Evaluation of groundwater resources in such buried-valley aquifers needs to take into account the unusually large drawdowns in response to pumping.     

Optimizing Pumping Strategies for Contaminant Studies and Remedial Actions

One of the more common techniques for controlling the migration of contaminant plumes is the use of pumping wells to produce desired changes in local flow rates and hydraulic gradients. When seeking to optimize an array of pumping well locations and discharge rates, it is important to consider the effects that non-ideal aquifer conditions, well construction and demographic constraints produce. Heterogeneous and anisotropic aquifer conditions seriously complicate siting and discharge rate requirements for pumping wells because of the distorted cones of depression that result from withdrawing water in such settings. Proper screen selection, gravel pack emplacement and well development are crucial factors affecting the operational characteristics and economics of pumping wells; these factors are generally recognized, though often undervalued. The impacts that well depth and diameter, and screen length and position have on the effectiveness of pumping efforts are also often undervalued, with detrimental consequences. Perhaps the most difficult problems to overcome in designing pumping schemes, however, are posed by demographic constraints. Denial of property access, vandalism and the unpredictability of nearby water supply and irrigation pumpage tend to wreak havoc with the best of pumping strategies.     

The value of subsidence data in ground water model calibration

The accurate estimation of aquifer parameters such as transmissivity and specific storage is often an important objective during a ground water modeling investigation or aquifer resource evaluation. Parameter estimation is often accomplished with changes in hydraulic head data as the key and most abundant type of observation. The availability and accessibility of global positioning system and interferometric synthetic aperture radar data in heavily pumped alluvial basins can provide important subsidence observations that can greatly aid parameter estimation. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate the value of spatial and temporal subsidence data for automatically estimating parameters with and without observation error using UCODE-2005 and MODFLOW-2000. A synthetic conceptual model (24 separate cases) containing seven transmissivity zones and three zones each for elastic and inelastic skeletal specific storage was used to simulate subsidence and drawdown in an aquifer with variably thick interbeds with delayed drainage. Five pumping wells of variable rates were used to stress the system for up to 15 years. Calibration results indicate that (1) the inverse of the square of the observation values is a reasonable way to weight the observations, (2) spatially abundant subsidence data typically produce superior parameter estimates under constant pumping even with observation error, (3) only a small number of subsidence observations are required to achieve accurate parameter estimates, and (4) for seasonal pumping, accurate parameter estimates for elastic skeletal specific storage values are largely dependent on the quantity of temporal observational data and less on the quantity of available spatial data.     

Analysis of steady ground water flow toward wells in a confined-unconfined aquifer

A confined aquifer may become unconfined near the pumping wells when the water level falls below the confining unit in the case where the pumping rate is great and the excess hydraulic head over the top of the aquifer is small. Girinskii's potential function is applied to analyze the steady ground water flow induced by pumping wells with a constant-head boundary in a mixed confined-unconfined aquifer. The solution of the single-well problem is derived, and the critical radial distance at which the flow changes from confined to unconfined condition is obtained. Using image wells and the superposition method, an analytic solution is presented to study steady ground water flow induced by a group of pumping wells in an aquifer bounded by a river with constant head. A dimensionless function is introduced to determine whether a water table condition exists or not near the pumping wells. An example with three pumping wells is used to demonstrate the patterns of potentiometric surface and development of water table around the wells.     

Modeling of Contaminant Movement Near Pumping Wells: Saturated-Unsaturated Flow with Particle Tracking

A transient axisymmetric saturated-unsaturated numerical flow model was coupled with a particle tracking model to investigate the movement of contaminants when a shallow unconfined aquifer is pumped at a constant rate. The particle tracking model keeps track of locations and masses of solutes in the aquifer, and the time of capture by the well. At the end of each time-step the flow model solves the Richard's equation for the hydraulic head distribution from which elemental velocities are calculated. Solutes are then displaced for a period equivalent to the time-step using both the magnitude and direction of the elemental velocities. Numerical experiments were performed to investigate effluent concentrations in wells with screens of different length and in different positions relative to zones of stratified contamination. At early times of pumping the effluent concentrations were similar to the concentrations adjacent to the well screen, but at late times, the concentrations approached the vertically averaged concentration in the aquifer. Time to attain the vertically averaged concentration was determined by the well geometry, initial location of the contaminant plume in relation to the well screen, and hydraulic properties of the aquifer. The results are consistent with the hydraulics of flow to a pumping well and of particular importance, they demonstrate that short-term pump tests could give erroneous design concentrations for pump-and-treat systems. The model provides a means of quantifying arrival times and mixing ratios. It could therefore provide a useful means of designing production wells in aquifers with stratified contamination and more efficient recovery systems for aquifer remediation.     

Static and dynamic conceptual model of a complexly fractured crystalline rock aquifer

A conceptual model of anisotropic and dynamic permeability is developed from hydrogeologic and hydromechanical characterization of a foliated, complexly fractured, crystalline rock aquifer at Gates Pond, Berlin, Massachusetts. Methods of investigation include aquifer‐pumping tests, long‐term hydrologic monitoring, fracture characterization, downhole heat‐pulse flow meter measurements, in situ extensometer testing, and earth tide analysis. A static conceptual model is developed from observations of depth‐dependent and anisotropic permeability that effectively compartmentalizes the aquifer as a function of foliation intensity. Superimposed on the static model is dynamic permeability as a function of hydraulic head in which transient bulk aquifer transmissivity is proportional to changes in hydraulic head due to hydromechanical coupling. The dynamic permeability concept is built on observations that fracture aperture changes as a function of hydraulic head, as measured during in situ extensometer testing of individual fractures, and observed changes in bulk aquifer transmissivity as determined from earth tides during seasonal changes in hydraulic head, with higher transmissivity during periods of high hydraulic head, and lower transmissivity during periods of relatively lower hydraulic head. A final conceptual model is presented that captures both the static and dynamic properties of the aquifer. The workflow presented here demonstrates development of a conceptual framework for building numerical models of complexly fractured, foliated, crystalline rock aquifers that includes both a static model to describe the spatial distribution of permeability as a function of fracture type and foliation intensity and a dynamic model that describes how hydromechanical coupling impacts permeability magnitude as a function of hydraulic head fluctuation. This model captures important geologic controls on permeability magnitude, anisotropy, and transience and therefor offers potentially more reliable history matching and forecasts of different water management strategies, such as resource evaluation, well placement, permeability prediction, and evaluating remediation strategies.     

Some analytical solutions for sensitivity of well tests to variations in storativity and transmissivity

The theory of a pumping test or a slug test to measure aquifer transmissivity or storativity assumes that the aquifer properties are uniform around the well. The response of the drawdown to small spatial variations in aquifer properties in the volume of influence is determined by spatial weighting functions or Fréchet kernels, which in general are functions of space and time. The Fréchet kernels determine the effective “volume of influence” of the measurements at any time. Under the assumption that the well is a line sink we derive explicit analytical expressions for the Fréchet kernels for storativity and for transmissivity for both pumping and slug tests. We also derive the total sensitivity functions for uniform variations in storativity and transmissivity and show that they are the spatial integrals of the Fréchet kernels. We consider both the case of separate pumping and observation wells and also the radially symmetric case of observations made at the pumped or slugged well. The “volume of influence” is symmetric with respect to the pumping or slugged well and the observation well, and far from the well the contours of equal spatial sensitivity approach the shapes of ellipses with a well at each focus, rather than circles centered on the pumping well. We use the analytical solutions to investigate the nature of the singularities in the spatial sensitivity functions around the wells, which govern the importance of inhomogeneities close to the well or observation point.     

Anisotropy in the Ironton and Galesville Sandstones Near a Thermal-Energy-Storage Well, St. Paul, Minnesota

The U.S. Geological Survey is studying the potential for storage of heated water in a sandstone aquifer in St. Paul, Minnesota. The efficiency of the aquifer to store thermal energy is related, in part, to the hydrogeologic characteristics of the aquifer. The movement of heat away from the injection well is directly related to the anisotropy. Aquifer tests were conducted to determine the anisotropy near the heated-water injection well. The maximum and minimum values of transmissivity along the principal directions of the hydraulic conductivity tensors of the Ironton and Galesville Sandstones in St. Paul, Minnesota are approximately 1,090 and 480 feet squared per day. The storage coefficient is 4.5 × 10⁻⁵. These values represent the average of four determinations of nonsteady flow to a well in an idealized infinite anisotropic aquifer. Analysis of the values of transmissivity and storage coefficient for hypothetical changes in location of two of the monitoring wells where depth-deviation surveys were not available indicates that computed transmissivities vary less than 5 percent and storage coefficients vary less than ±6 percent.     

Three-dimensional geostatistical inversion of synthetic tomographic pumping and heat-tracer tests in a nested-cell setup

A main purpose of groundwater inverse modeling lies in estimating the hydraulic conductivity field of an aquifer. Traditionally, hydraulic head measurements, possibly obtained in tomographic setups, are used as data. Because the groundwater flow equation is diffusive, many pumping and observation wells would be necessary to obtain a high resolution of hydraulic conductivity, which is typically not possible. We suggest performing heat tracer tests using the same already installed pumping wells and thermometers in observation planes to amend the hydraulic head data set by the arrival times of the heat signals. For each tomographic combinations of wells, we recommend installing an outer pair of pumping wells, generating artificial ambient flow, and an inner well pair in which the tests are performed. We jointly invert heads and thermal arrival times in 3-D by the quasi-linear geostatistical approach using an efficiently parallelized code running on a mid-range cluster. In the present study, we evaluate the value of heat tracer versus head data in a synthetic test case, where the estimated fields can be compared to the synthetic truth. Because the sensitivity patterns of the thermal arrival times differ from those of head measurements, the resolved variance in the estimated field is 6 to 10 times higher in the joint inversion in comparison to inverting head data only. Also, in contrast to head measurements, reversing the flow field and repeating the heat-tracer test improves the estimate in terms of reducing the estimation variance of the estimate. Based on the synthetic test case, we recommend performing the tests in four principal directions, requiring in total eight pumping wells and four intersecting observation planes for heads and temperature in each direction.