Analytical solution for determining the critical condition of saltwater upconing in a leaky artesian aquifer

Bower, Jennifer; Motz, Louis H.; Durden, D.W.

doi:10.1016/s0022-1694(99)00078-5

Cited by 64 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Under certain circumstances, equilibrium can be established in which a stable cone develops at some depth below the bottom of the well screen, such that upward forces caused by the well are balanced by downward forces caused by density effects [Bower et al, 1999]. The rate and extent of saltwater upconing depend on a number of factors, including hydraulic properties of aquifer systems, pumping rate and duration, initial position of the interface, density contrast between freshwater and saltwater, and other factors such as dispersion and sorption effects, groundwater recharge, regional flow rate, and the well and aquifer geometries [Wirojanagud and Charbeneau, 1985;Reilly and Goodman, 1987;Saeed et al, 2002].…”

Section: Upconing Below Wellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seawater intrusion processes, investigation and management: Recent advances and future challenges

Werner

Bakker

Post

et al. 2013

Advances in Water Resources

1,148

666

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Section: Upconing Below Wellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seawater intrusion processes, investigation and management: Recent advances and future challenges

Werner

Bakker

Post

et al. 2013

Advances in Water Resources

1,148

666

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Analytical, experimental, and numerical methods have been employed to determine the position of the sharp interface and the critical pumping rate. A number of exact and approximate analytical solutions have been obtained for local upconing in the case of steady flow in homogeneous aquifers (Muskat, 1937;Strack, 1973;Bower et al, 1999). Dagan and Zeitoun (1998) developed an analytical solution for interface upconing in a stratified aquifer with random hydraulic conductivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Saltwater Upconing and Decay Beneath a Well Pumping Above an Interface Zone

2005

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Saltwater, or brine, underlies fresh water in many aquifers, with a transition zone separating them. Pumping fresh water by wells located above the transition zone produces upconing of the latter, eventually salinizing the pumped water, forcing shut-off. The salinity of the pumped water depends on the pumping rate, on the location of the well's screen, on the fresh water flow regime, and on the difference in density between fresh and salt water, expressed as a dimensionless factor called density difference factor (DDF). Following the well's shut-off, the upconed saltwater mound undergoes decay, tending to return to the prepumping regime. In this paper, the upconing-decay processes in an axially symmetrical system are investigated to discover how they are affected by the DDF and by the dispersivities. The code FEAS-Brine, developed for the simulation of coupled density-dependent flow and salt transport, is used. In this code, the flow equation is solved by the Galerkin finite element method (FEM), while the advective-dispersive salt transport equation is solved in the EulerianLagrangian framework. This code does not suffer from the instability constraint on the Peclet number in the vicinity of the pumping well, where advection dominates the salt transport. Simulation results show that upconing is very sensitive to the DDF, which, in our work, is in the range from 0 (for ideal tracer) to 0.2 (for brine). It is shown that for the DDF of 0.025 (for seawater), local upconing occurs only for low iso-salinity surfaces, while those of high salt concentration, practically, do not shift toward the pumping well. For an ideal tracer, all isosalinity surfaces rise toward the pumping well. For brine, however, only iso-salinity surfaces of very low salinity upcone towards the pumping well. The decay process is lengthy; it takes a long time for the upconed saltwater to migrate back to the original horizontal transition zone prior to pumping. However, the wider transition zone caused by hydrodynamic dispersion can never return to the initial one. This indicates that once a pumping well is abandoned because of high salinity, it can be reused for groundwater utilization only after a long time.Quanlin Zhou et al. (To TIPM)

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“…In many arid areas, horizontal skimming or collector wells are used to extract freshwater from aquifers underlain by saline aquifers (Kemper et al 1976;Sufi et al 1998;Asghar et al 2002;Saeed et al 2002). Over-exploitation of water from the upper freshwater aquifer causes upconing of the underlying saline aquifer (Bower et al 1999;Zhang et al 2004) and intrusion of saline water into the well. However, by keeping the discharge rate below a critical or maximum allowable value, the saline water will not enter the well (Bower et al 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steady critical discharge rates from vertical and horizontal wells in fresh–saline aquifers with sharp interfaces

et al. 2016

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In this study, the critical (or maximum) discharge rates before saline water enters a well were determined for vertical and horizontal wells in a freshwater aquifer which is separated from a static saline aquifer by a sharp interface. Flow around the well was solved by integration of a point sink solution along the well axis, and both the critical discharge rate and critical interface rise were determined through a comparison of the heads and vertical gradients at the saline-fresh water interface. The rates were determined for vertical and horizontal wells with various lengths and depths for different aquifer salinities. Results were generalized by drawing dimensionless type curves. The results showed that the dimensionless total critical discharge rates are higher for the longer horizontal wells and longer vertical wells with a certain bottom depth, and they almost linearly decrease with well depth at rates of 0.7-0.9. For the dimensionless well length of 0.2, the dimensionless total discharge rate of a horizontal well is about 0.1 more than that of a vertical well with the same length and well-top depth. Also, the critical discharge rates per unit length of well are inversely proportional to well length and remarkably higher for shallower wells. Additionally, the critical pumping rate is proportional to the salinity difference of the aquifers. These results were confirmed by comparison to existing solutions for vertical wells with dimensionless lengths of 0.2, 0.5 and 0.6, and for critical interface rises in the range of 0.75-0.9.

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Analytical solution for determining the critical condition of saltwater upconing in a leaky artesian aquifer

Cited by 64 publications

References 16 publications

Seawater intrusion processes, investigation and management: Recent advances and future challenges

Seawater intrusion processes, investigation and management: Recent advances and future challenges

Saltwater Upconing and Decay Beneath a Well Pumping Above an Interface Zone

Steady critical discharge rates from vertical and horizontal wells in fresh–saline aquifers with sharp interfaces

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