Estimating Hydraulic Properties of the Shallow Subsurface Using the Groundwater Response to Earth and Atmospheric Tides: A Comparison With Pumping Tests

Valois, Rémi; Rau, Gabriel C.; Vouillamoz, Jean‐Michel; Derode, B.

doi:10.1029/2021wr031666

Cited by 15 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(173 reference statements)

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“…In general, we are left for each frequency with one equation and two unknowns: the transfer functions 𝐴𝐴 𝐴𝐴𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 [−] and 𝐴𝐴 𝐴𝐴𝜀𝜀𝜀𝜀𝜀 [𝑃𝑃 𝑃𝑃] which are frequency dependent. To solve this problem in the case of tidal signals, we assume the transfer functions do not vary quickly with frequency, which was already done in Acworth et al (2016) and more recently in Valois et al (2022). This hypothesis will be discussed in Section 5.3.…”

Section: Tidal Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Earthquakes and Heavy Rainfall Influence on Aquifer Properties: A New Coupled Earth and Barometric Tidal Response Model in a Confined Bi‐Layer Aquifer

Thomas

Fortin

Vittecoq

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

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Piezometric level response to periodic forcings, like solid earth tide strain, barometric loading or oceanic tide loading, is a useful alternative way to characterize aquifer properties. It was first spread as a tool for aquifer characterization 34 years ago with the model of Hsieh et al. (1987). It was promising in the sense it only needs classical monitoring data (hourly water level) and no expensive field work like a pumping test. Yet its usage is still far from its potential as expressed in the review of McMillan et al. (2019). On the one hand, the pumping test literature, relatively old, covers a wide variety of aquifer geometries and boundary conditions, including, without comprehensiveness, models for confined radial aquifer (Theis, 1935), leaky aquifers (Hantush & Jacob, 1955), double porosity aquifers (Warren & Root, 1963), unconfined aquifer (Neuman, 1972, spatially heterogeneous aquifers with the general radial flow model (Barker, 1988). Research is still ongoing namely on numerical modeling to complexify the possible responses. On the other hand, literature on periodic responses only recently represented a decent variety of aquifer geometry, starting from Roeloffs (1996) and Rojstaczer (1988) for unconfined aquifers, to Wang et al. (2018) for leaky aquifers. Research on this topic now faces the challenge of proposing a comprehensive view and practical guidelines, like did in its time the useful tutorial of Doan et al. (2008). Now the two major and somewhat opposing pitfalls scientists face are the following. The first one is that the existing models are based on strong hypotheses (perfect confinement for Hsieh et al. (1987), negligible storage in the aquitard in Wang et al. (2018),) which of course are not in general met. There is still room for a more general derivation of analytical models, like what Odling et al. (2015) did in the case of the model of Rojstaczer (1988), precising the low frequency behavior which was improperly predicted. The second pitfall, opposing to the first, is that we need to remain as simple as possible, and keep in mind the mathematical limitations of modeling inversion: from n observed variables, we can invert at best n parameters. In that sense, periodic response problems are nearly always over-parametrized, since observations are often limited to phase and amplitude response at one or two frequencies, while hydrodynamic and poroelastic parameters (hydraulic conductivity, storativity, etc.), grow numerous with the complexity of the models. In this paper, we do not claim to give the comprehensive view we

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Section: Tidal Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2019), and implemented in Valois et al. (2022). As a secondary step only, we use all of this information to constrain and invert the model (Sections 4.5 and 4.6).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earthquakes and Heavy Rainfall Influence on Aquifer Properties: A New Coupled Earth and Barometric Tidal Response Model in a Confined Bi‐Layer Aquifer

Thomas

Fortin

Vittecoq

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

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“…The results show that laboratory measurements for aquitards lead to values that are one or two order of magnitudes higher in comparison with pore pressure responses to naturally occurring stress methods. One possible reason for this is the fact that hydraulic properties derived from transient methods are frequency dependent (Valois et al 2022); however, the exact reason for this remains unknown and requires further research.…”

Section: S S Dependency On Methods and Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tidal stress is ubiquitous, and even though hydraulic stress is relatively small, it acts uniformly over a larger area compared to an aquifer pumping test, with spatial influence that could extend over kilometres (Narasimhan et al 1984). Another investigation found discrepancies which are attributed to borehole skin effects (Valois et al 2022). Overall, further research is necessary to investigate the representative scale for the estimation methods based on natural forces (McMillan et al 2020).…”

Section: S S Dependency On Methods and Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Multifactor analysis of specific storage estimates and implications for transient groundwater modelling

Chowdhury¹,

Gong²,

Rau

et al. 2022

Hydrogeol J

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Specific storage (SS) has considerable predictive importance in the modelling of groundwater systems, yet little is known about its statistical distribution and dependency on other hydrogeological characteristics. This study provides a comprehensive overview and compiles 430 values of SS from 183 individual studies, along with complementary hydrogeological information such as estimation methods, lithology, porosity, and formation compressibility. Further evaluation of different approaches to determine and utilize SS values for numerical groundwater modelling, along with the scale and source of uncertainty of different measurement methods, was carried out. Overall, SS values range across six orders of magnitude (from 3.2 × 10–9 to 6 × 10–3 m–1) with a geometric mean of 1.1 × 10–5 m–1 and the majority (> 67%) of values are in the order of 10–5 and 10–6 m–1. High SS values of ~10–4 m–1 were reported for glacial till and sandy lithologies, particularly for shallow and thin strata where leakage may obscure the estimation of SS. A parallel assessment of 45 transient regional-scale groundwater models reveals a disconnect between findings of this study and the way SS is treated in practice, and that there is a lack of foundational SS data to conduct quantitative uncertainty analysis. This study provides the first probability density functions of SS for a variety of lithology types based on the field and laboratory tests collated from the literature. Log transformed SS values follow a Gaussian/normal distribution which can be applied to evaluate uncertainties of modelling results and therefore enhance confidence in the groundwater models that support decision making.

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“…On the basis of the inverse of 𝐴𝐴 𝐴𝐴 , the hydraulic conductivity can also be derived from the following equation (Hyder et al, 1994;Valois et al, 2022):…”

Section: Time-domain Barometric-response Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fault Zone Hydraulic Parameter Estimation by Passive Methods Using Natural Forces

Guanru

Shi

Rasmussen

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

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Fault zones play a key role in fluid, heat, and solute transport, and thereby affect many important hydrogeological processes (Bense et al., 2013;Manga et al., 2012). Previous studies have shown that fault zones act as hydraulic conducts, barriers, or mixed conduit/barrier systems, depending on their structure, petrophysical properties, and 3D geometry (Caine et al., 1996). Yet, such properties are not easily measured in situ as many are located in low-permeability fractured crystalline rock (Xue et al., 2016). Conventionally, hydrogeologists employ field tests (e.g., aquifer pumping tests, slug tests) to estimate hydrogeological properties. Alternatively, structural geologists use discrete fracture network (DFN) modeling (Giuffrida et al., 2019;Panza et al., 2016) or mini air-permeameters to characterize the permeability (Bense et al., 2013). Note that conventional hydrogeological methods examine intergration at larger scales (>10 m), while structural methods focus on microstructure (<1 m), often resulting in a gap between local and regional scales that makes it difficult to uniquely characterize the fault-damage zone.Additionally, these methods are costly and do not provide hydrodynamic information on the temporal evolution of the hydrogeological properties of the fault zone. Previous studies have shown that the hydrogeological properties

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Estimating Hydraulic Properties of the Shallow Subsurface Using the Groundwater Response to Earth and Atmospheric Tides: A Comparison With Pumping Tests

Cited by 15 publications

References 57 publications

Earthquakes and Heavy Rainfall Influence on Aquifer Properties: A New Coupled Earth and Barometric Tidal Response Model in a Confined Bi‐Layer Aquifer

Earthquakes and Heavy Rainfall Influence on Aquifer Properties: A New Coupled Earth and Barometric Tidal Response Model in a Confined Bi‐Layer Aquifer

Multifactor analysis of specific storage estimates and implications for transient groundwater modelling

Fault Zone Hydraulic Parameter Estimation by Passive Methods Using Natural Forces

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