Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Dupuit–Forchheimer assumption holds that groundwater flows horizontally in an unconfined aquifer and that the groundwater discharge is proportional to the saturated aquifer thickness. It was formulated by Jules Dupuit and Philipp Forchheimer in the late 1800s to simplify groundwater flow equations for analytical solutions.
(unconfined), where S y is the specific yield of the aquifer. Note that the partial differential equation in the unconfined case is non-linear, whereas it is linear in the confined case. For unconfined steady-state flow, this non-linearity may be removed by expressing the PDE in terms of the head squared:
The specific storage is the amount of water that a portion of an aquifer releases from storage, per unit mass or volume of the aquifer, per unit change in hydraulic head, while remaining fully saturated. Mass specific storage is the mass of water that an aquifer releases from storage, per mass of aquifer, per unit decline in hydraulic head:
An aquifer in the same geologic unit may be confined in one area and unconfined in another. Unconfined aquifers are sometimes also called water table or phreatic aquifers, because their upper boundary is the water table or phreatic surface (see Biscayne Aquifer). Typically (but not always) the shallowest aquifer at a given location is ...
Groundwater discharge is the volumetric flow rate of groundwater through an aquifer. Total groundwater discharge, as reported through a specified area, is similarly expressed as: = where Q is the total groundwater discharge ([L 3 ·T −1]; m 3 /s), K is the hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer ([L·T −1]; m/s),
Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the vadose zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Groundwater recharge also encompasses water moving away from the water table farther into the saturated zone. [ 1 ]
Sand or gravel aquifers would thus be easier to extract water from (e.g., using a pumping well) because of their high transmissivity, compared to clay or unfractured bedrock aquifers. Hydraulic conductivity has units with dimensions of length per time (e.g., m/s, ft/day and ( gal /day)/ft 2 ); transmissivity then has units with dimensions of ...
In confined aquifers , the cone of depression is a reduction in the pressure head surrounding the pumped well. When a well is pumped, the water level in the well is lowered. By lowering this water level, a gradient occurs between the water in the surrounding aquifer and the water in the well. Because water flows from high to low water levels or ...