Estimating Hydraulic Conductivity Profiles Using Borehole Resistivity Logs

Abstract

Measurements of aquifer resistivity are intuitively attractive for estimating aquifer hydraulic conductivity because of the fundamental relation between hydraulic conductivity and electrical conductivity; both of these properties depend on porosity, grain size and packing configuration ([1], [2]). In this study porosity and hydraulic conductivity profiles are estimated in three boreholes in Glafkos aquifer, located near the city of Patras in Western Greece. For this purpose, resistivity measurements, the law of Archie [1], the Kozeny-Carman model [2] and numerical simulations of pumping tests performed in the boreholes, have been used. It is shown that resistivity logs and pumping tests constitute a useful data set for the estimation of hydraulic conductivity profiles. The reliability of the results has been discussed. The relationships between porosity and hydraulic conductivity resulting for each of the three investigated boreholes have been compared to each other as well as with literature data. The comparison confirms that the value of the hydraulic conductivity for a given value of the porosity varies significantly.

Investigating Formation Factor–Hydraulic Conductivity Relations in Complex Geologic Environments: A Case Study in Taiwan

“…Therefore, the SHN signal was adopted in this study, which showed a stronger correlation with K for estimating the F values. The correlation of SHN that is better than that of LON was also confirmed by previous studies [5,13]. For estimating the formation factor, SHN is utilized as it assures a greater resolution of the formation than LON.…”

“…Although this method can provide detailed information concerning hydraulic conductivity with accurate results, the method is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly, as mentioned above. To improve the limitation, down-hole logging tools, such as flowmeter [9][10][11], electrical well logging [5,12,13], the liner profiling method [14], or NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) logging [15], have been studied to explore profiles of the hydraulic properties of formations surrounding boreholes. Although these down-hole logging tools can provide higher resolutions, not all tools have the advantage of low cost while estimating hydraulic conductivity.…”

“…Second, the predicted porosity is typically used in conjunction with the Kozeny-Carman model to estimate hydraulic conductivity. The abovementioned methodology has been presented in the literature [5,12,13,22,23]. These studies also pointed out that Archie's law and Kozeny-Carman model are only validated in sandy strata.…”

Estimation of Hydrological Parameters from Geoelectrical Measurements

“…Measurements of aquifer resistivity are useful to estimate the aquifer hydraulic conductivity due to the fundamental relation between K and electrical conductivity [36]. Kelly [37] worked with glacial outwash materials and obtained a linear connection between resistivity and K in relatively uniform water quality.…”