Effect of spatial variation in hydraulic conductivity on groundwater flow by alternate solution techniques

The behaviour of an aquifer in which there is spatial variation in hydraulic conductivity is simulated by means of a Monte Carlo procedure. The lognormal function is used to model the distribution of conductivities. Thus variations in hydraulic head and specific discharge are studied. As an alternate technique a finite-difference technique is adopted for comparative purposes. The standard deviation of two-dimensional flows is related to the standard deviation of conductivity. Hence, an empirical probability distribution of flows is obtained by specific values of the variance in conductivities.