Groundwater modeling by layer based three-dimensional concept

Abstract

Due to its simplicity and efficiency, the conventional quasi three-dimensional concept has been widely applied in analyzing groundwater flow in multiaquifer system, especially for regional problem. But the conventional quasi three-dimensional concept is not able to deal with the discontinuous and interconnected strata and fully three-dimensional flow. Therefore, in order not only to overcome these shortcomings but also to maintain efficiency, we propose a new layer based three-dimensional concept to develop a groundwater simulation model. This new concept assumes that the pore pressure of every aquifer and aquitard in the vertical direction can be depicted by the quadratic polynomial interpolation function, then the vertical integration is performed on each layer to ensure the continuity of pore pressure and flux at the interfaces between any two layers. The finite analytical numerical method is adopted to develop the present groundwater simulation model. The results show that the present model is capable of simulating fully three-dimensional flow pattern.