A generalized solution for groundwater head fluctuation in a tidal leaky aquifer system

Abstract

A new analytical solution is developed for describing groundwater level fluctuations in a coupled leaky confined aquifer system which consists of an unconfined aquifer, confined aquifer, and an aquitard in between. The aquifer system has a tidal boundary at the seashore, a no flow boundary at remote inland side, and a confined aquifer extending under the sea and terminated with an outlet-capping. This new solution has shown to be a generalisation of most existing analytical solutions for a tidal aquifer system which includes single confined and leaky confined aquifers. In addition, the solution is used to explore the influences of the dimensionless leakance of the outlet-capping, the dimensionless hydraulic diffusivities, and the leakages of the inland and offshore aquitards on the head responses in the leaky confined aquifer.