Four decades of inverse problems in hydrogeology

Abstract

We review the main stages of the evolution of ideas and methods for solving the inverse problem in hydrogeology; i.e., the identification of the transmissivity field in single-phase flow from piezometric data, in mainly steady-state and, occasionally, transient flow conditions. We first define the data needed to solve an inverse problem in hydrogeology, then describe the numerous approaches that have been developed over the past 40 years to solve it, emphasizing the major contributions made by Shlomo P. Neuman. Finally, we briefly discuss fitting processes that start by defining the unknown field as geological images (generated by Boolean or geostatistical methods).The early attempts at solving the inverse problem were direct, i.e., the transmissivity field was directly determined by using stream lines of the flow and inverting the flow equation along these lines. Faced with the poor results obtained in this manner, hydrogeologists have tried many different ways of minimizing the balance error representing an integral of the mass-balance error for each mesh for a given transmissivity field. These attempts were accompanied by constraints imposed on the transmissivity field in order to avoid instabilities.The idea then emerged that the unknown field should reproduce the local observations of the pressure at the measurement points instead of minimizing a balance error. Second, it should also satisfy a condition of plausibility, which means that the transmissivity field obtained through the inverse solution should not deviate too far from an a priori estimate of the real transmissivity field. This a priori notion led to the inclusion of a Bayesian approach resulting in the search for an optimal solution by maximum likelihood, as expounded later.Simultaneously, the existence of locally measured values in the transmissivity field (obtained by pumping tests) allowed geostatistical methods to be used in the formulation of the problem; the result of this innovation was that three major approaches came into being: (1) the definition of the a priori transmissivity field by kriging; (2) the method of cokriging;(3) the pilot point method. Furthermore, geostatistics made it possible to pose the inverse problem in a stochastic framework and to solve an ensemble of possible and equally probable fields, each of them equally acceptable as a solution.

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