The Hybrid Finite-Element Mixing-Cell method: a candidate for modelling groundwater flow and transport in karst systems

in Bertrand, C.; Carry, N.; Mudry, J. (Eds.) et al Proc. H2Karst, 9th Conference on Limestone Hydrogeology (2011, September)

Groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling in karst systems remains a challenge because of the complexity of the geology made of caves, voids, conduits of various sizes and forms and interacting ... [more ▼]

Groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling in karst systems remains a challenge because of the complexity of the geology made of caves, voids, conduits of various sizes and forms and interacting matrix. Such heterogeneous structures cause complex hydraulic conditions for groundwater flow and transport processes. Despite the progresses in field investigation techniques and experiments, detailed knowledge and characterization of the karst system geometry and connectivity remains inaccessible and pragmatic modelling approaches have to be used. Groundwater models of different complexities have been developed for karst systems, ranging from transfer functions and linear reservoir models to spatially distributed models. Here, a new flexible modelling approach, the Hybrid Finite-Element Mixing-Cell method (HFEMC), has been developed that allows combining in a single model, and in a fully interacting way, different mathematical approaches of various complexities for groundwater modelling in complex environments. This includes linear reservoirs, distributed reservoirs, groundwater flow in variably saturated equivalent porous media, with possibilities to consider by-pass flows along preferential flow paths, internal boundary conditions between the karstic features and the surrounding rock mass matrix background and drainage by surface waters. This method has been implemented in the groundwater flow and solute transport numerical code SUFT3D. The objective of this communication is to present the modelling concepts and to discuss the potentials and advantages of the HFEMC method for modelling groundwater flow in karst systems over existing more classical modelling approaches. The discussion is supported by illustrative “synthetic” examples representative of karst systems and a real modelling application to the case of groundwater rebound and water inrush in a closed underground coal mine which presents a very similar geometrical and hydrological context to a karst, with cavities, drains and interacting rock mass. [less ▲]

Measured and computed solute transport behaviour in the saturated zone of a fractured and slightly karstified chalk aquifer

in Bertrand, C.; Carry, N.; Mudry, J. (Eds.) et al Proc. H2Karst, 9th Conference on Limestone Hydrogeology (2011, September)

Solute transport in the saturated zone of a micro-fissured, fractured and even locally slightly karstified aquifer has been studied by multi-tracer tests in groundwater convergent flow conditions to ... [more ▼]

Solute transport in the saturated zone of a micro-fissured, fractured and even locally slightly karstified aquifer has been studied by multi-tracer tests in groundwater convergent flow conditions to pumping wells or towards a collecting gallery. Different behaviour has been detected that can be described by three kinds of typical breakthrough curves: (a) transport with a dominant advective component, producing narrow and symmetrical observed breakthrough curves, characteristic of solute transport in open fractures or conduits; (b) transport with significant advective and dispersive components exhibiting more spread-out breakthrough curves, with also non-symmetrical trends caused by retardation effects; (c) transport with a dominant dispersive component, showing mostly a flat breakthrough curve where dispersion and possible immobile water effects are difficult to be separated. These results were synthesized from thirty-five injections of tracers, distributed between 11 sites. Groundwater flow and solute transport are simulated and illustrated here for one example, employing the finite element code HYDROGEOSPHERE, and using two ways for representing the fracture zones: highly contrasting hydraulic conductivity zones with a classical REV approach and discrete fractures combined with a porous medium by the use of a dual approach. Results are particularly illustrative to show that detailed parameterization and calibration of such a local situation remain difficult even on the basis of an extensive data sets from many tracer tests. [less ▲]

Regional scale groundwater flow and transport modelling: from conceptual challenges to pragmatic numerical solutions

Conference (2011, July 05)

National and international regulations require the management of groundwater resources at the regional scale, considering the physical limits of hydrogeological systems. Physically-based, spatially ... [more ▼]

National and international regulations require the management of groundwater resources at the regional scale, considering the physical limits of hydrogeological systems. Physically-based, spatially-distributed groundwater flow and transport models allow representing in a realistic and reliable way the dynamics of regional groundwater systems and processes and accounting for negative or positive feedbacks induced by a changed stress factors or particular measures set up in the basin such as increase in pumping, use of fertilizers or artificial recharge. Such models are complex and their development and implementation are challenging for several reasons related to numerical difficulties but also to data acquisition and management, conceptualization, calibration and validation. Variably-saturated, regional flow and transport models have been developed using two finite element simulators SUFT3D and HydroGeoSphere specifically suited to regional-scale applications. A complex synthetic case has been used as a reference model to test the impact on predictions made and computing times of various conceptual and technical choices such as spatial and time discretization, simplified unsaturated laws or boundary conditions. Real cases have been developed for regional groundwater bodies (from 500 to 1700 km²) to deliver relevant information such as the estimation and evolution with time of groundwater reserves, under different stress conditions such as climate changes and for the evaluation of regional groundwater quality status and nitrate trend assessment under alternative management scenarios and mitigation measures. Results provide guidelines for the conceptualisation, the calibration and the use of regional-scale groundwater flow and transport models for decision making. [less ▲]

Direct multiple-point geostatistical simulation of edge properties for modeling thin irregularly-shaped surfaces

in Mathematical Geosciences (2011), 43

Thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes often have a major control on flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media. Clay drapes are often complex curvilinear 3-dimensional surfaces and ... [more ▼]

Thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes often have a major control on flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media. Clay drapes are often complex curvilinear 3-dimensional surfaces and display a very complex spatial distribution. Variogram-based stochastic approaches are often also not able to describe the spatial distribution of clay drapes since complex, curvilinear, continuous and interconnected structures cannot be characterized using only two-point statistics. Multiple-point geostatistics aims to overcome the limitations of the variogram. The premise of multiple-point geostatistics is to move beyond two-point correlations between variables and to obtain (cross) correlation moments at three or more locations at a time using "training images" to characterize the patterns of geological heterogeneity. Multiple-point geostatistics can reproduce thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes but is often computationally very intensive. This paper describes and applies a methodology to simulate thin irregularly-shaped surfaces with a smaller CPU and RAM demand than the conventional multiple-point statistical methods. The proposed method uses edge properties for indicating the presence of thin irregularly-shaped surfaces. This method allows directly simulating edge properties instead of pixel properties to make it possible to perform multiple-point geostatistical simulations with a larger cell size and thus a smaller computation time and memory demand. [less ▲]

Captage de Pêchet: Etude hydrogéologique en vue de préciser l'extension des zones de prévention

Report (2011)

Chapter 4.8 Hydrogeological study of Somes-Szamos transboundary alluvial aquifer

in Ganoulis, Jacques; Aureli, Alice; Fried, Jean (Eds.) Transboundary Water Resources Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach (2011)

Numerical simulation of heat transfer associated with low enthalpy geothermal pumping in an alluvial aquifer

in Geologica Belgica (2011), 14(1-2),

In a context favourable to renewable energies, various aquifers are studied to supply heating and/or cooling systems. The groundwater flow and heat transport are modelled in the alluvial aquifer of the ... [more ▼]

In a context favourable to renewable energies, various aquifers are studied to supply heating and/or cooling systems. The groundwater flow and heat transport are modelled in the alluvial aquifer of the river Meuse in providing an integrated tool for assessing the feasibility of a low energy air cooling/heating system for a large office building by pumping groundwater and discharging it in the river after being heated/cooled by using heat pumps. First, a comparative sensitivity analysis is performed using different codes for assessing the influence of coupling and non linearities on the main parameters due to the temperature evolution in function of time. Then, assuming that the aquifer temperature variation is weak enough to neglect its influence on hydrodynamics and thermal parameters, the MT3DMS and HydroGeoSphere codes are used for modelling the actual case-study. In practice, the worst case scenario considered by the project manager is the cooling of the office building during the hottest summer conditions. So, the influence of the warm water from the river Meuse is computed as it constitutes the major limiting factor. An optimisation of the pumping schema is computed to maximise the efficiency of the system. [less ▲]

Application of a multi-model approach to account for conceptual model and scenario uncertainties in groundwater modelling

in Journal of Hydrology (2010), 394(3-4), 416-435

Groundwater models are often used to predict the future behaviour of groundwater systems. These models may vary in complexity from simplified system conceptualizations to more intricate versions. It has ... [more ▼]

Groundwater models are often used to predict the future behaviour of groundwater systems. These models may vary in complexity from simplified system conceptualizations to more intricate versions. It has been recently suggested that uncertainties in model predictions are largely dominated by uncertainties arising from the definition of alternative conceptual models. Different external factors such as climatic conditions or groundwater abstraction policies, on the other hand, may also play an important role. Rojas et al. (2008) proposed a multimodel approach to account for predictive uncertainty arising from forcing data (inputs), parameters and alternative conceptualizations. In this work we extend upon this approach to include uncertainties arising from the definition of alternative future scenarios and we apply the extended methodology to a real aquifer system underlying the Walenbos Nature Reserve area in Belgium. Three alternative conceptual models comprising different levels of geological knowledge are considered. Additionally, three recharge settings (scenarios) are proposed to evaluate recharge uncertainties. A joint estimation of the predictive uncertainty including parameter, conceptual model and scenario uncertainties is estimated for groundwater budget terms. Finally, results obtained using the improved approach are compared with the results obtained from methodologies that include a calibration step and which use a model selection criterion to discriminate between alternative conceptualizations. Results showed that conceptual model and scenario uncertainties significantly contribute to the predictive variance for some budget terms. Besides, conceptual model uncertainties played an important role even for the case when a model was preferred over the others. Predictive distributions showed to be considerably different in shape, central moment and spread among alternative conceptualizations and scenarios analysed. This reaffirms the idea that relying on a single conceptual model driven by a particular scenario, will likely produce bias and under-dispersive estimations of the predictive uncertainty. Multimodel methodologies based on the use of model selection criteria produced ambiguous results. In the frame of a multimodel approach, these inconsistencies are critical and can not be neglected. These results strongly advocate the idea of addressing conceptual model uncertainty in groundwater modelling practice. Additionally, considering alternative future recharge uncertainties will permit to obtain more realistic and, possibly, more reliable estimations of the predictive uncertainty. [less ▲]

Direct multiple-point geostatistical simulation of edge properties for modeling thin irregularly-shaped surfaces

in Cockx, L.; Van Meirvenne, M.; Bogaert, P. (Eds.) et al 8th International Conference On Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, GeoENV’2010 (2010, September)

Thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes often have a major control on flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media. Clay drapes are often complex curvilinear 3-dimensional surfaces and ... [more ▼]

Thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes often have a major control on flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media. Clay drapes are often complex curvilinear 3-dimensional surfaces and display a very complex spatial distribution. Variogram-based stochastic approaches are often also not able to describe the spatial distribution of clay drapes since complex, curvilinear, continuous and interconnected structures cannot be characterized using only two-point statistics. Multiple-point geostatistics aims to overcome the limitations of the variogram. The premise of multiple-point geostatistics is to move beyond two-point correlations between variables and to obtain (cross) correlation moments at three or more locations at a time using "training images" to characterize the patterns of geological heterogeneity. Multiple-point geostatistics is able to reproduce thin irregularly-shaped surfaces such as clay drapes but is often computationally intensive. To capture the thin surfaces, a small grid cell size should be adopted for the training image. This results in large training images and a large search template size and thus a large CPU and RAM demand (Huysmans and Dassargues, 2009). [less ▲]

On the value of conditioning data to reduce conceptual model uncertainty in groundwater modeling

in Water Resources Research (2010), 46(8), 08520

Recent applications of multi-model methods have demonstrated their potential in quantifying conceptual model uncertainty in groundwater modeling applications. To date, however, little is known about the ... [more ▼]

Recent applications of multi-model methods have demonstrated their potential in quantifying conceptual model uncertainty in groundwater modeling applications. To date, however, little is known about the value of conditioning to constrain the ensemble of conceptualizations, to differentiate among retained alternative conceptualizations, and to reduce conceptual model uncertainty. We address these questions by conditioning multi-model simulations on measurements of hydraulic conductivity and observations of system-state variables and evaluating the e ffects on (i) the posterior multi-model statistics and (ii) the contribution of conceptual model uncertainty to the predictive uncertainty. Multi-model aggregation and conditioning is performed by combining the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) method and Bayesian model averaging (BMA). As an illustrative example we employ a 3-dimensional hypothetical system under steady-state conditions, for which uncertainty about the conceptualization is expressed by an ensemble (M) of 7 models with varying complexity. Results show that conditioning on heads allowed for the exclusion of the two simplest models, but that their information content is limited to further diff erentiate among the retained conceptualizations. Conditioning on increasing numbers of conductivity measurements allowed for a further reffinement of the ensemble M and resulted in an increased precision and accuracy of the multi-model predictions. For some groundwater flow components not included as conditioning data, however, the gain in accuracy and precision was partially o ffset by strongly deviating predictions of a single conceptualization. Identifying the conceptualization producing the most deviating predictions may guide data collection campaigns aimed at acquiring data to further eliminate such conceptualizations. Including groundwater flow and river discharge observations further allowed for a better diff erentiation among alternative conceptualizations and drastic reductions of the predictive variances. Results strongly advocate the use of observations less commonly available than groundwater heads to reduce conceptual model uncertainty in groundwater modeling. [less ▲]