Excess pore water pressure due to ground surface erosion

Abstract

The Laplace transform is applied to solve the groundwater flow equation with a boundary that is initially fixed but that starts to move at a constant rate after some fixed time. This problem arises in the study of pore water pressures due to erosional unloading where the aquifer lies underneath an unsaturated zone. We derive an analytic solution and examine the predicted pressure profiles and boundary fluxes. We calculate the negative pore water pressure in the aquifer induced by the initial erosion of the unsaturated zone and subsequent erosion of the aquifer.