On Inflow to a Tunnel in a Fractured Double-Porosity Aquifer

Inflow to a tunnel is a great public concern and is closely related to groundwater hydrology, geotechnical engineering, and mining engineering, among other disciplines. Rapid computation of inflow to a tunnel provides a timely means for quickly assessing the inflow discharge, thus is critical for safe operation of tunnels. Dewatering of tunnels is another engineering practice that should be planned. In this study, an analytical solution of the inflow to a tunnel in a fractured unconfined aquifer is obtained. The solution takes into account either the spherical or slab-shaped matrix block and the unsteady state interporosity flow. The instantaneous drainage water table and anisotropic hydraulic conductivities of the fractures network are also considered. Both uniform flux and uniform head boundary condition are considered to simulate the constant head boundary condition in the tunnel. The effects of the hydraulic parameters of the fractured aquifer on the inflow variation of the tunnel are explored. The application of the presented solution to obtain the optimum location and discharge of the well to minimize the inflow to a tunnel is illustrated.     

The climate change effect on probable maximum precipitation in a catchment. A case study of the Karun river catchment in the Shalu bridge site (Iran)

Probable maximum precipitation (PMP) is assessed on the example of the Karun catchment (the Shalu bridge area). The climate change effects on PMP are investigated under three scenarios: A1B, A2, and B1. It is established that the PMP value for 24, 48, and 72 hours is 127, 170, and 185 mm, respectively. It is demonstrated that the PMP value will decrease by up to 5% under A1B scenario, and will increase by up to 5% and 10% under A2 and B1 scenarios, respectively.     

Three-dimensional semi-analytical solution to groundwater flow in confined and unconfined wedge-shaped aquifers

The Laplace domain solutions have been obtained for three-dimensional groundwater flow to a well in confined and unconfined wedge-shaped aquifers. The solutions take into account partial penetration effects, instantaneous drainage or delayed yield, vertical anisotropy and the water table boundary condition. As a basis, the Laplace domain solutions for drawdown created by a point source in uniform, anisotropic confined and unconfined wedge-shaped aquifers are first derived. Then, by the principle of superposition the point source solutions are extended to the cases of partially and fully penetrating wells. Unlike the previous solution for the confined aquifer that contains improper integrals arising from the Hankel transform [Yeh HD, Chang YC. New analytical solutions for groundwater flow in wedge-shaped aquifers with various topographic boundary conditions. Adv Water Resour 2006;26:471–80], numerical evaluation of our solution is relatively easy using well known numerical Laplace inversion methods. The effects of wedge angle, pumping well location and observation point location on drawdown and the effects of partial penetration, screen location and delay index on the wedge boundary hydraulic gradient in unconfined aquifers have also been investigated. The results are presented in the form of dimensionless drawdown-time and boundary gradient-time type curves. The curves are useful for parameter identification, calculation of stream depletion rates and the assessment of water budgets in river basins.     

The Climate Change Effect on the Water Regime. The Case Study: the Karun Catchment,Iran

One of the most important effects of climate change is changes in the water regime and the frequency of flood occurrence. The Karun catchment is one of the most important Iran catchments, but it has never been studied specifically. This study considers the effect of climate change on the annual and the maximum runoff of the Karun catchment in the Shalu bridge area. First, temperature and monthly precipitation of the HadCM3 model were downscaled based on three scenarios, AlB, A2, and B1, ustng the LARS-WG model. Then data were spatially downscaled based on the change factor model, and the SRM model was used to simulate runoff. The results show that the climate change affects the water regime of this catchment.     

Boundary depletion rate and drawdown in leaky wedge‐shaped aquifers

This study presents analytical solutions of the three‐dimensional groundwater flow to a well in leaky confined and leaky water table wedge‐shaped aquifers. Leaky wedge‐shaped aquifers with and without storage in the aquitard are considered, and both transient and steady‐state drawdown solutions are derived. Unlike the previous solutions of the wedge‐shaped aquifers, the leakages from aquitard are considered in these solutions and unlike similar previous work for leaky aquifers, leakage from aquitards and from the water table are treated as the lower and upper boundary conditions. A special form of finite Fourier transforms is used to transform the z‐coordinate in deriving the solutions. The leakage induced by a partially penetrating pumping well in a wedge‐shaped aquifer depends on aquitard hydraulic parameters, the wedge‐shaped aquifer parameters, as well as the pumping well parameters. We calculate lateral boundary dimensionless flux at a representative line and investigate its sensitivity to the aquitard hydraulic parameters. We also investigate the effects of wedge angle, partial penetration, screen location and piezometer location on the steady‐state dimensionless drawdown for different leakage parameters. Results of our study are presented in the form of dimensionless flux‐dimensionless time and dimensionless drawdown‐leakage parameter type curves. The results are useful for evaluating the relative role of lateral wedge boundaries and leakage source on flow in wedge‐shaped aquifers. This is very useful for water management problems and for assessing groundwater pollution. The presented analytical solutions can also be used in parameter identification and in calculating stream depletion rate and volume. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Potential impacts of climate change on groundwater levels on the Kerdi-Shirazi plain,Iran

It is important to predict how groundwater levels in an aquifer will respond to various climate change scenarios to effectively plan for how groundwater resources will be used in the future. Due to the overuse of groundwater resources and the multi-year drought in the Kerdi-Shirazi plain in Iran, some land subsidence and a drop in groundwater levels has taken place, and without active management, further degradation of the groundwater resource is possible under predicted future climate change scenarios in the country. To determine the potential impacts of climate change on groundwater levels in the region, the groundwater model GMS was coupled with the atmospheric circulation model HADCM3 using scenarios A1B, A2 and B1 for the period 2016–2030. The results of the climate modelling suggest that the Kerdi-Shirazi plain will experience an increase in minimum temperature and maximum temperature of, respectively, between 0.03 and 0.47, and 0.32–0.45 °C for this time period. The results of the groundwater modelling suggest that water levels on the Kerdi-Shirazi plain will continue to decline over the forecast period with decreases of 34.51, 36.57 and 33.58 m being predicted, respectively, for climate scenarios A1B, A2 and B1. Consequently, groundwater resources in the Kerdi-Shirazi plain will urgently need active management to minimize the effects of ongoing water level decline and to prevent saltwater intrusion and desertification in the region.     

Application of Water Quality Index and Water Quality Model QUAL2K for Evaluation of Pollutants in Dez River,Iran

Water Resources - Dez River in Iran is a long river and has generally good-quality water. Unfortunately, in this river water quality has decreased over recent years due to drought, industrial and...     

Urmia lake water level fluctuation hydro informatics modeling using support vector machine and conjunction of wavelet and neural network

In this research, the simulation of Urmia Lake water level fluctuation by means of two models was applied. For this, Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Neural Wavelet Network (NWN) models that conjugated both the wavelet function and ANN, developed for simulating the Urmia Lake water level fluctuation. The yearly data of rainfall, temperature and discharge to the Urmia Lake and water level fluctuation were used. Urmia Lake is the biggest and the hyper saline lake in Iran. The outcome of the SVM based models are compared with the NWN. The results of SVM model performs better than NWN and offered a practical solution to the problem of water level fluctuation predictions. Analysis results showed that the optimal situation occurred with use of precipitation, temperature and discharge for all station and water level fluctuations at the lag time of one year (RMSEs) of 0.23, 0.41 m obtained by SVM, NWN, respectively, and SSEs of 0.43, 1.33 and R ² of 0.97, 0 obtained by SVM, NWN, respectively. The results of SVM model show better accuracy in comparison with the NWN model.     

Modeling the Influence of Groundwater Exploitation on Land Subsidence Susceptibility Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Natural Resources Research - Groundwater over-exploitation in arid and semiarid environments has led to many land subsidence cases. Immense economic losses incurred from land subsidence occurrences...