HR: 0830h
AN: H21D-0888    [PDF]
TI: On transient capture zone analysis: The importance of dispersion
AU: * Vesselinov, V V
EM: vvv@lanl.gov
AF: LANL, EES-6, MS T003, Los Alamos, NM 87505 United States
AU: Keating, E H
EM: ekeating@lanl.gov
AF: LANL, EES-6, MS T003, Los Alamos, NM 87505 United States
AB: Transient analyses of capture zones of water supply wells are in many practical cases superior to commonly apply steady-state analyses. Recently there was increased number of case studies on this topic but most of them took into account the advection only (similarly to the most steady-state studies). In the transient case, however, taking into account only the advection without dispersion can produce substantial bias in the capture zone estimates. The advection flowpaths could be not representative for the potential contaminant flowpaths; the advection flowpath and arrival-time estimates could not be representative for the location and/or time of the potential plume arrival. We present synthetic studies and case study of water-supply wells in Espanola basin to demonstrate our conclusions. Obtained transient capture zone estimates are very sensitive to heterogeneity and properties of the medium; especially the porosity and dispersion parameters.
DE: 1832 Groundwater transport
DE: 1869 Stochastic processes
DE: 1884 Water supply
DE: 3210 Modeling
DE: 3230 Numerical solutions
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting