An efficient technique for determining optimal groundwater usage is crucial to the development of an improved approach for managing and planning water resources. A method, based on the boundary integral equation method (BIEM), is proposed for performing analysis of groundwater flows. The new approach results in a portable computer code, even for regional aquifer systems. The proposed computer model will provide water resources planners, engineers, hydrologists, and hydrogeologists, a powerful tool for obtaining information such as: 1) the influence of pumping on the drawdown at different sites; 2) the optimal pumping/recharge rate required to control groundwater movement and the migration of contaminating sources. The code will assist in the development of appropriate prevention measures. Unlike application codes based on traditional modeling techniques (e.g., finite elements and finite differences), the numerical process in BIEM is mainly carried out on the boundary. This results in a reduction of the dimensionality of the problem by a factor of one. Two-dimensional problems are essentially solved via simple line integrations. Three-dimensional cases are simulated by integrating over a surface.
Anticipated Results:The computer code will be useful for performing sensitivity analysis of groundwater flows. The work has an additional benefit of handling aquifer flow problems in which there is uncertainty in the data input. The code will provide pertinent information on the statistics of the head/flux distribution, given the statistical properties of the boundary conditions (stage, discharge), rainfall/evaporation, aquifer transmissivity etc. These analyses are key to the comprehensive understanding of the potential yield of aquifers, and the development of contaminant transport models.
