Use of Groundwater Level Fluctuations near an Operating Water Supply Well to Estimate Aquifer Transmissivity

Abstract

We developed a method to estimate aquifer transmissivity from the hydraulic‐head data associated with the normal cyclic operation of a water supply well thus avoiding the need for interrupting the water supply associated with a traditional aquifer test. The method is based on an analytical solution that relates the aquifer's transmissivity to the standard deviation of the hydraulic‐head fluctuations in one or more observation wells that are due to the periodic pumping of the production well. We analyzed the resulting analytical solution and demonstrated that when the observation wells are located near the pumping well, the solution has a simple, Dupuit like form. Numerical analysis demonstrates that the analytical solution can also be used for a quasi‐periodic pumping of the supply well. Simulation of cyclic pumping in a statistically heterogeneous medium confirms that the method is suitable for analyzing the transmissivity of weakly or moderately heterogeneous aquifers. If only one observation well is available, and the shift in the phase of hydraulic‐head oscillations between the pumping well and the observation well is not identifiable. Prior knowledge of aquifer's hydraulic diffusivity is required to obtain the value of the aquifer transmissivity.