HR: 0800h
AN: H11C-0315 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The use of Advective-Transport Observations to Improve Ground-Water Flow Calibration
AU: * Anderman, E R
EM: Evan@McDonaldMorrissey.com
AF: McDonald Morrissey Associates, Inc., 1775 Sherman St., Suite 2080, Denver, CO 80209 United States
AB: Applied inverse modeling is a beneficial way to calibrate ground-water flow models which has not been widely used due to misperceived complexity. In fact, inverse modeling is no more complex than other widely accepted modeling techniques. Inverse modeling provides an optimized model calibration, increases the conceptual understanding of the flow system, and allows calculation of model reliability measures. However, problems of parameter insensitivity and non-uniqueness still exist given the commonly available hydraulic-head and head-dependent flow observations. It is clear that more computationally efficient methods of using concentration data are needed to estimate ground-water flow and transport parameters. Advective-transport observations can be used in a number of ways, such as 1) a surrogate for concentration data to improve the calibration of a model and the estimation of ground-water flow parameters, 2) to represent the age of the groundwater, or in an iterative procedure in which trial advective-front locations link decoupled flow and transport models. Field-scale and analytical test cases are used to illustrate the benefits of using advective-transport observations in inverse modeling. Ground-water flow models calibrated using advective-transport observations can be used a good starting point for further geochemical modeling and can provide significant insight into the physical system.
DE: 3210 Modeling
DE: 3260 Inverse theory
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1832 Groundwater transport
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting