Three-dimensional hydraulic conductivity upscaling in groundwater modeling

Zhou, Haiyan; Li, Liangping; Gómez‐Hernández, J. Jaime

doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2010.03.008

Cited by 29 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…For this purpose, the public domain code FLOWXYZ3D [ Li et al , 2010], has been developed. The details of the upscaling approach, the numerical modeling using interblock conductivity tensors, and several demonstration cases are given by Zhou et al [2010] and Li et al [2010, 2011a, 2011b]. The resulting upscaled interblock tensors produced by this approach are always of rank two, symmetric and positive definite.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For each interblock, do the following: (1) isolate the fine‐scale conductivities within a volume made up by the interblock plus an additional “border ring” or “skin” and simulate flow, at the fine scale, within this volume. (2) As explained in many studies [e.g., Gómez‐Hernández , 1991; Sánchez‐Vila et al , 1995, 2006; Zhou et al , 2010; Li et al , 2011a], there is a need to solve more than one flow problem in order to being able of identifying all components of the interblock conductivity tensor. (3) From the solution of the flow problems, use to derive the interblock conductivity tensor.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling transient groundwater flow by coupling ensemble Kalman filtering and upscaling

Li¹,

Zhou²,

Franssen³

et al. 2012

Water Resources Research

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[1] The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is coupled with upscaling to build an aquifer model at a coarser scale than the scale at which the conditioning data (conductivity and piezometric head) had been taken for the purpose of inverse modeling. Building an aquifer model at the support scale of observations is most often impractical since this would imply numerical models with many millions of cells. If, in addition, an uncertainty analysis is required involving some kind of Monte Carlo approach, the task becomes impossible. For this reason, a methodology has been developed that will use the conductivity data at the scale at which they were collected to build a model at a (much) coarser scale suitable for the inverse modeling of groundwater flow and mass transport. It proceeds as follows: (1) Generate an ensemble of realizations of conductivities conditioned to the conductivity data at the same scale at which conductivities were collected. (2) Upscale each realization onto a coarse discretization; on these coarse realizations, conductivities will become tensorial in nature with arbitrary orientations of their principal components. (3) Apply the EnKF to the ensemble of coarse conductivity upscaled realizations in order to condition the realizations to the measured piezometric head data. The proposed approach addresses the problem of how to deal with tensorial parameters, at a coarse scale, in ensemble Kalman filtering while maintaining the conditioning to the fine-scale hydraulic conductivity measurements. We demonstrate our approach in the framework of a synthetic worth-of-data exercise, in which the relevance of conditioning to conductivities, piezometric heads, or both is analyzed.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling transient groundwater flow by coupling ensemble Kalman filtering and upscaling

Li¹,

Zhou²,

Franssen³

et al. 2012

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Many studies on upscaling have been published in past decades (e.g., Cassiraga et al, 2005;Dagan, 1994;Dagan & Lessoff, 2001;Fernàndez-Garcia et al, 2009;Fernàndez-Garcia & Gómez-Hernández, 2007;Fleckenstein & Fogg, 2008;Li et al, 2011;Renard & de Marsily, 1997;Rubin et al, 1999;Sanchez-Vila et al, 2006;Scheibe & Yabusaki, 1998;Wen & Gómez-Hernández, 1996;Zhou et al, 2010). Most of these studies have focused on upscaling the K field and have shown good preservation of the flows and heads.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upscaling of Regional Scale Transport Under Transient Conditions: Evaluation of the Multirate Mass Transfer Model

Guo

Fogg

Henri

2019

Water Resources Research

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Regional scale transport models are needed to support the long‐term evaluation of groundwater quality and to develop management strategies aiming to prevent serious groundwater degradation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the capacity of a previously developed upscaling approach to adequately describe the main solute transport processes, including the capture of late‐time tails under changing boundary conditions. Potential factors that impact the performance of upscaling methods, including temporal variations in mass transfer rates and mass distributions, were investigated. Advective‐dispersive contaminant transport in a 3‐D heterogeneous domain was simulated and used as a reference solution. The equivalent transport under homogeneous flow conditions was then evaluated by applying the multirate mass transfer (MRMT) model. The random walk particle tracking method was used to solve the solute transport for heterogeneous and homogeneous MRMT scenarios under steady state and transient conditions. The results indicate that the MRMT model can capture the tails satisfactorily for plumes transported with ambient steady state flow fields at all studied scales using the same parameters. However, when the boundary conditions change in either local, plume, or regional scale, the mass transfer model calibrated for transport under steady state conditions cannot accurately reproduce the tailings observed for the heterogeneous scenario. The deteriorating impacts of transient boundary conditions on the upscaled model are more significant for regions where the flow fields are dramatically affected, which highlights the poor applicability of the MRMT approach for complex field settings. This finding also has implications for the suitability of other potential upscaling approaches.

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“…If data for the small scale are available, but derivation of reliable statistical properties is impossible, numerical approaches can be used to obtain a K tensor that satisfies certain criteria, such as flow conservation or head reproduction (e.g. Zhou et al, 2010;Li et al, 2011). In the remainder of this paper, the term equivalent values will be used to indicate such calculated K tensors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The usefulness of outcrop analogue air permeameter measurements for analyzing aquifer heterogeneity: quantifying outcrop hydraulic conductivity and its spatial variability

Rogiers

Beerten

Smeekens

et al. 2013

Hydrological Processes

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Saturated hydraulic conductivity (K) is one of the most important parameters determining groundwater flow and contaminant transport in both unsaturated and saturated porous media. Although several well‐established laboratory methods exist for determining K, in situ measurements of this parameter remain very complex and scale dependent. Often, the limited accessibility of subsurface sediments for sampling means an additional impediment to our ability to quantify subsurface K heterogeneity. One potential solution is the use of outcrops as analogues for subsurface sediments. This paper investigates the use of air permeameter measurements on outcrops of unconsolidated sediments to quantify K and its spatial heterogeneity on a broad range of sediment types. The Neogene aquifer in northern Belgium is used as a case study for this purpose. To characterize the variability in K, 511 small‐scale air permeability measurements were performed on outcrop sediments representative over five of the aquifer's lithostratigraphic units. From these measurements, outcrop‐scale equivalent K tensors were calculated using numerical upscaling techniques. Validation of the air permeameter‐based K values by comparison with laboratory constant head K measurements reveals a correlation of 0.93. Overall, the results indicate that hand‐held air permeameters are very efficient and accurate tools to characterize saturated K, as well as its small‐scale variability and anisotropy on a broad range of unconsolidated sediments. The studied outcrops further provided a qualitative understanding of aquifer hydrostratigraphy and quantitative estimates about K variability at the centimetre‐scale to metre‐scale. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Three-dimensional hydraulic conductivity upscaling in groundwater modeling

Cited by 29 publications

References 28 publications

Modeling transient groundwater flow by coupling ensemble Kalman filtering and upscaling

Modeling transient groundwater flow by coupling ensemble Kalman filtering and upscaling

Upscaling of Regional Scale Transport Under Transient Conditions: Evaluation of the Multirate Mass Transfer Model

The usefulness of outcrop analogue air permeameter measurements for analyzing aquifer heterogeneity: quantifying outcrop hydraulic conductivity and its spatial variability

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