An area matching process to estimate the hydraulic parameters using transient constant-head test data

Abstract

A new parameter estimation methodology was established for the interpretation of the transient constant-head test to identify the hydrogeological parameters of an aquifer. The proposed method, referred as the area matching process (AMP), is based on linking the field data to the theoretical type curve through a unique area computed above these curves bounded by a user specified integration interval. The proposed method removes the need of superimposition of theoretical type curves and field data collected during the test, which may lead to the unexpected errors in assessing aquifer parameters. The AMP approach was implemented for a number of synthetically generated hypothetical test data augmented with several random noise levels, which mimic the uncertainty in site measurement together with porous media heterogeneity, and to an actual field data set available in the literature. The estimation performance of the AMP method was also compared with the existing traditional and recently developed techniques. As demonstrated by the conducted test results, the accuracy, reliability, robustness and simplicity of the proposed technique provide significant flexibility in field applications.