• Title/Summary/Keyword: Solute transport

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MODFLOW or FEFLOW: A Case Study of Groundwater Model Selection for the Upper Waikato Catchment, New Zealand

  • Weir, Julian;Moore, Dr Catherine;Hadfield, John
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2011.05a
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    • pp.14-14
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    • 2011
  • Groundwater in the Waikatoregion is a valuable resource for agriculture, water supply, forestry and industries. The 434,000 ha study area comprises the upper Waikato River catchment from the outflow of Lake Taupo (New Zealand's largest lake) through to Lake Karapiro (a man-made hydro lake with high recreational value) (Figure 1). Water quality in the area is naturally high. However, there are indications that this quality is deteriorating as a result of land use intensification and deforestation. Compounding this concern for decision makers is the lag time between land use changes and the realisation of effects on groundwater and surface water quality. It is expected that the effects of land use changes have not yet fully manifested, and additional intensification may take decadesto fully develop, further compounding the deterioration. Consequently, Environment Waikato (EW) have proposed a programme of work to develop a groundwater model to assist managing water quality and appropriate policy development within the catchment. One of the most important and critical decisions of any modelling exercise is the choice of the modelling platform to be used. It must not inhibit future decision making and scenario exploration and needs to allow as accurate representation of reality as feasible. With this in mind, EW requested that two modelling platforms, MODFLOW/MT3DMS and FEFLOW, be assessed for their ability to deliver the long-term modelling objectives for this project. The two platforms were compared alongside various selection criteria including complexity of model set-up and development, computational burden, ease and accuracy of representing surface water-groundwater interactions, precision in predictive scenarios and ease with which the model input and output files could be interrogated. This latter criteria is essential for the thorough assessment of predictive uncertainty with third-party software, such as PEST. This paper will focus on the attributes of each modelling platform and the comparison of the two approaches against the key criteria in the selection process. Primarily due to the ease of handling and developing input files and interrogating output files, MODFLOW/MT3DMS was selected as the preferred platform. Other advantages and disadvantages of the two modelling platforms were somewhat balanced. A preliminary regional groundwater numerical model of the study area was subsequently constructed. The model simulates steady state groundwater and surface water flows using MODFLOW and transient contaminant transport with MT3DMS, focussing on nitrate nitrogen (as a conservative solute). Geological information for this project was provided by GNS Science. Professional peer review was completed by Dr. Vince Bidwell (of Lincoln Environmental).

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Analysis of the applicability of parameter estimation methods for a transient storage model (저장대모형의 매개변수 산정을 위한 최적화 기법의 적합성 분석)

  • Noh, Hyoseob;Baek, Donghae;Seo, Il Won
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.52 no.10
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    • pp.681-695
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    • 2019
  • A Transient Storage Model (TSM) is one of the most widely used model accounting for complex solute transport in natural river to understanding natural river properties with four TSM key parameters. The TSM parameters are estimated via inverse modeling. Parameter estimation of the TSM is carried out by solving optimization problem about finding best fitted simulation curve with measured curve obtained from tracer test. Several studies have reported uncertainty in parameter estimation from non-convexity of the problem. In this study, we assessed best combination of optimization method and objective function for TSM parameter estimation using Cheong-mi Creek tracer test data. In order to find best optimization setting guaranteeing convergence and speed, Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) based global optimization methods, such as CCE of SCE-UA and MCCE of SP-UCI, and error based objective functions were compared, using Shuffled Complex-Self Adaptive Hybrid EvoLution (SC-SAHEL). Overall results showed that multi-EA SC-SAHEL with Percent Mean Squared Error (PMSE) objective function is the best optimization setting which is fastest and stable method in convergence.

A Tracer Study on Mankyeong River Using Effluents from a Sewage Treatment Plant (하수처리장 방류수를 이용한 추적자 시험: 만경강 유역에 대한 사례 연구)

  • Kim Jin-Sam;Kim Kang-Joo;Hahn Chan;Hwang Gab-Soo;Park Sung-Min;Lee Sang-Ho;Oh Chang-Whan;Park Eun-Gyu
    • The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.82-91
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    • 2006
  • We investigated the possibility of using effluents from a municipal sewage treatment plant (STP) as tracers a tracer for hydrologic studies of rivers. The possibility was checked in a 12-km long reach downstream of Jeonju Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant (JSTP). Time-series monitoring of the water chemistry reveals that chemical compositions of the effluent from the JSTP are fluctuating within a relatively wide range during the sampling period. In addition, the signals from the plant were observed at the downstream stations consecutively with increasing time lags, especially in concentrations of the conservative chemical parameters (concentrations f3r chloride and sulfate, total concentration of major cations, and electric conductivity). Based on this observation, we could estimate the stream flow (Q), velocity (v), and dispersion coefficient (D). A 1-D nonreactive solute-transport model with automated optimization schemes was used for this study. The values of Q, v, and D estimated from this study varied from 6.4 to $9.0m^3/sec$ (at the downstream end of the reach), from 0.06 to 0.10 m/sec, and from 0.7 to $6.4m^2/sec$, respectively. The results show that the effluent from a large-scaled municipal STP frequently provides good, multiple natural tracers far hydrologic studies.

Preferential Flow as Tested by Breakthrough Curves of Cl- and Cu2+ from Saturated Undisturbed Soil Core Samples under Steady Flow Conditions (포화 불교란 토양시료의 Cl- 및 Cu2+ 출현곡선에 의한 preferential flow의 검증)

  • Yoo, Sun-Ho;Han, Kyung-Hwa;Ro, Hee-Myong;Han, Gwang-Hyun
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.33 no.2
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    • pp.71-78
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    • 2000
  • Preferential flow has recently been the subject of increasing interest because these phenomena contribute to solute transport in soils. Commonly, preferential flow paths are associated with macropores or highly structured soils. We presented an analysis of the measured breakthrough curves (BTCs) of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ ions to test the occurrence of preferential flow in soils using miscible displacement technique under steady flow conditions. We also analyzed soil water retention curves and from this curves induced cumulative pore size distribution of undisturbed soils, which sampled from Ap1, B1, and C horizons of Songjeong series soils (the fine loamy, mesic family of Typic Hapludults). In this study, miscible displacement experiment on C horizon was excluded, because it is structureless sandy loam with saturated hydraulic conductivity of $5.2cmhr^{-1}$. The saturated hydraulic conductivity of Ap1 horizon was $2.0cmhr^{-1}$, which was about 7 times higher than that of B1 horizon ($0.27cm hr^{-1}$). Cumulative pore size distribution predicted that Ap1 horizon had more macropores (pore diameter larger than $49{\mu}m$, equivalent to -6 kpa of soil matric potential) than B1 horizon. The hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient from chloride BTCs was estimated as $1.3cm^2hr^{-1}$ for B1 and $34cm^2hr^{-1}$ for Ap1 horizon. However the retardation factors of B1 and Ap1 horizon were significantly different, i.e. 1 and 0.6, respectively, which means that there was distinct partition between mobile water and immobile phase in Ap1 horizon. The copper retardation effect of Ap1 horizon was less than that of B1 horizon, even though cation exchange capacity of Ap1 horizon was higher than that of B1 horizon. Thus, breakthrough curves of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ obviously showed the probability that preferential flow would occur in Ap1 horizon.

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