ADVANCED GROUNDWATER

1. Introduction
Distribution of water in the earth:
Groundwater as an element in water cycle

TYPES OF WATER BELOW GROUND SURFACE

Water in the subsurface, from the practical hydrogeologic perspective, can
be divided into two major zones: water stored in the unsaturated zone, also
called vadose zone or zone of aeration, and water stored in the saturated
zone.
Soil pore space in the vadose zone is filled with both air and water, in varying
proportions, depending on the soil type, climatic and seasonal conditions.
This zone may be divided, with respect to the occurrence and circulation of
water, into the uppermost zone of soil water, the intermediate zone, and the
capillary fringe immediately above water table.

The capillary fringe is a zone directly above water table and contains capillary
interstices some or all of which are filled with water that is continuous with
the water in the zone of saturation but is held above that zone by capillarity
acting against gravity.
Water Table:
Represents the top of saturated zone Represent the upper limit of
unconfined aquifer Depressed version of topography.

Aquifer:
A geologic unit that stores and transmits water.
Unconfined Aquifer:

An unconfined aquifer is an aquifer which is bounded by aquiclude at its

lower side and by water table at its upper side. In other words, the flow of
water in the upper part of the aquifer is not restricted by any confining layer
and that makes the upperpart a bounded free surface. Consequently, the
free surface of unconfined aquifer is under atmospheric pressure. Its upper
boundary is water table which is free to rise and fall. Unconfined aquifer is
directly recharged by infiltration.

Confined Aquifer:

A confined aquifer is an aquifer which is bounded by an aquiclude both at

the lower and up-per part. In other words, this aquifer is confined between
two impervious layers. The con-fined aquifer is known as pressure aquifer.
In a confined aquifer, the pressure of water is higher than atmospheric
pressure. The water in a well which is constructed in such an aquifer rises
usually above the aquifer and even above the ground surface due to high
pressure. By the way, the groundwater pressure can be either equal or
greater than atmospheric pressure. Con-fined aquifer cannot be recharged
directly by infiltration.

In confined vs. unconfined aquifers:

• Although unconfined aquifers are used for water supply, they are
often contaminated by wastes and chemicals at the surface.
• Confined aquifers are less likely to be contaminated and thereby
provide supplies of good quality.
• Mechanisms of transport are advection and dispersion.
• There can be chemical interactions in aqueous phase or between the
water and solid media.

A common disadvantage of confined aquifers is the slower rate of

groundwater flow and depleted oxygen levels. This characteristically leads
to more mineralized groundwater due to the increased interaction with local
rocks. Also, some nuisance minerals which have generally been present in
an insoluble form can become soluble due to changes in the chemical
conditions in confined aquifers. These commonly include iron, manganese
and sometimes arsenic.

Leaky aquifer:

A leaky aquifer is also known as semi-confined aquifer as either both the

upper and the lower boundaries are aquitards or one of them is aquiclude
and the remaining is aquitard. The water is free to move through aquitards
either upward or downward.

HOW GROUNDWATER FLOWS?

Water infiltrates below ground and recharges groundwater in areas where
permeable deposits are found at the ground surface. Once in the aquifer, the
permeability, porosity and other factors determine how fast the groundwater
moves.

Groundwater can flow a few centimeters to a few meters a day in sand or

gravel aquifers, and tens of meters a day (rapid) or more in some highly
fractured bedrock aquifers. In some aquitards, the water may move less than
a few millimeters in a day (slow). In general, groundwater moves from areas
of recharge toward areas of discharge such as springs, streams, lakes or
wetlands, etc. Water infiltrating or recharging in the hills or uplands of a river
valley travels down to the water table aquifer, then moves horizontally
through the various formations until it reaches and discharges into a surface
water body.

RECHARGE AREAS:
Recharge areas infiltrate a significant amount of water into the subsurface.
Sometimes these areas are concentrated, covering a small part of the total
land area. For instance, 80% of the groundwater recharge may occur in 20%
of the land area that has more permeable sands and gravels. In other places
with a flat landscape or low-permeability soils (e.g., clays and silts), a small
amount of infiltration may take place over a large area. Wherever
precipitation happens, there is potential for some amount of infiltration and
recharge to occur.
AQUIFER PARAMETERS:
1. Porosity

2. Specific yield and retention,

3. Storage coefficient and specific storage

4. Hydraulic conductivity (coefficient of permeability),

5. Transmissibility (transmissivity)

Porosity, and Effective Porosity

Groundwater occupies the cracks and pore spaces between rocks and
mineral grains below the land surface. In the saturated zone, essentially all
of the pores are filled with water. If a volume of saturated aquifer material is
completely dried, the water volume removed reflects the total porosity of the
material, or the fraction of pore space within the total volume of solids plus
open spaces. This number can be surprisingly large; some minerals and rock
formations can have total porosities in excess of 50%. In the unsaturated, or
vadose, zone there can be significant amounts of water present, but the
voids are not completely filled.

Porosity (n): is the percentage of voids (empty space occupied by water or

air) in the total volume of rock, which includes both solids and voids.
where Vv is the volume of all rock voids and V is the total volume of rock (in
geologic terms, rock refers to all of the following: soils, unconsolidated and
consolidated sediments, and any type of rock in general).

Two Origins of Porosity:

Primary porosity:
• A function of grain size distribution, also packing
• Decreases with depth – compaction and pressure solution

Porosity increases as depth decreases. This is on account of the weight on

top of the deeper materials. Porosity also tends to increase with grainsize.
Secondary Porosity:
• Dissolution
• Fracture

Geological formations contain pores or small openings. The greater the

porosity of a formation, the greater the volume of water that can be held in
the pores. Different formations have different degrees of porosity. For
example, sand and gravel formations can have a porosity percentage as high
as 25%–50%, while for dense, solid bedrock, it may be less than 0.1%.

The rate (slow to rapid) and amount of water that can move through a
formation depends on its porosity and on how well the pores are connected.
Large amounts of water move rapidly through formations with many large
connected pores, such as gravel or highly fractured bedrock (water flows
through cracks and fractures in the rock instead of through pore spaces).
Water moves slowly through formations with small, poorly connected pores
such as clay. Formations that allow large amounts of water to flow rapidly,
such as sand and gravel deposits or sandstone, are called highly permeable.
In contrast, clay, silt and granite formations are much less permeable.

Effective porosity: However, some of the pore spaces may be too small or
too poorly connected to permit the water they contain to flow out easily. The
effective porosity can be thought of as the volume of pore space that will
drain in a reasonable period of time under the influence of gravity. Effective
porosity is always less than total porosity, sometimes (as in the case of clays)
much less. "Good aquifers" tend to have values of effective porosity in the
range of 10-30%, although examples of higher and lower values can be
found. Figure 1 illustrates the relationship among the types of porosity and
the volume of water in storage.

Specific Yield and Retention:

Specific Yield is the amount of water that can be extracted under the
gravitation force, and specific retention cannot be separated from the grain
surfaces because the fluid (water, oil) is attached to grain surfaces due to
adhesion forces. The specific yield, Sy, is the storage term used directly for
unconfined aquifers. It is defined as the drainable water volume, Vd, from
storage per unit surface area of the aquifer per unit decline in the water table,
which is shown diagrammatically in Figure below. This definition implies that
it is a dimensionless quantity (m3/m2m). The porosity is the combination of
specific yield and specific retention, Sr, and they complement each other,
Specific yield is useful to define part of porosity referring only to the movable
(abstractable) water in the rock. It is also known as effective porosity in
engineering.

Sy = Vw/ VT

where Vw is the volume of drainable water due to gravitation.

Storativity

The storage capacity of an aquifer is referred to as the storativity, S. The

older term, storage coefficient, is also used to describe the same aquifer
storage property. Storativity describes the capacity of an aquifer to store or
release water. It is defined as the volume of water removed or stored per unit
change in head normal to the earth’s surface over a unit area. Storativity is
dimensionless and is expressed as a decimal.

Unconfined Aquifer Storativity

The storativity for an unconfined aquifer is dominated by the gravity drainage
term, specific yield (Sy). Specific yield reflects the volume of water that drains
by gravity when the water table is lowered, or fills with water when the water
table is raised. The storativity (S) of an unconfined aquifer is composed of
two components as shown:

Sunconfined = Sy + Ss.bavg

where:
Sunconfined = storativity of an unconfined aquifer (dimensionless)

Sy = specific yield (dimensionless)

Ss = specific storage (1/L)

baverage = average thickness before and after a water level change (L)
As the water table is lowered 1 meter, the volume of water released per cubic
meter of unconfined aquifer is almost entirely accounted for by water that
drains from pores as described by specific yield, Sy. The portion of the
aquifer that underlies the drained portion also yields a small quantity of water
(small blue arrows in black volume) in response to the reduced weight
(because water drained from pores) of the overlying water. The structure of
the solids (black volume) compresses (reducing the volume of pore space)
as indicated by the compressibility of the aquifer skeleton, α, (jagged vertical
line). In addition, there is a small expansion of the slightly compressible
water, nβ, (blue dot and white arrows). This property of the aquifer is called
specific storage, Ss. The volume of water released from gravity drainage is
orders of magnitude larger than the volume squeezed from the saturated
portion of the aquifer, Ssbaverage. As a result, Sy is used to represent
unconfined aquifer storativity.
Ss = ρg (α + neβ)

where:

Ss= specific storage (1/L)

α = compressibility of the aquifer solid structure (T2L/M)

ne= effective porosity (dimensionless)

β = compressibility of water (T2L/M)

Hydraulic conductivity or Permeability (K)

Although porous subsurface formations can hold significant quantities of
groundwater, the water is of little use if it is unable to flow readily.
Permeability is a measure of the interconnectivity of the pore spaces.
Interconnected pores act like tiny conduits or pipes that allow fluids to flow
relatively unimpeded. Some materials, like clay or shale, contain a
tremendous amount of pore space. However, because clay minerals are flat
rather than rounded, the pores are very poorly connected.
So, low porosity usually results in low permeability, but high porosity does
not necessarily imply high permeability. It is possible to have a highly porous
rock with little or no interconnections between pores. A good example of a
rock with high porosity and low permeability is a vesicular volcanic rock,
where the bubbles that once contained gas give the rock a high porosity, but
since these holes are not connected to one another the rock has low
permeability.
Permeability is the ease in which water flows through the rock's pore
structure. A rock may be highly porous, but if the pore spaces are not
connected, it is not permeable. The following diagram represents
hypothetical flow paths through a porous media.
Transmissivity

When describing the transmission capacity of a small representative volume

of porous media the hydraulic conductivity is used. However, the capacity of
an unconfined or confined aquifer to transmit water is described as
transmissivity. Transmissivity is defined as the product of hydraulic
conductivity, K, and saturated aquifer thickness, b, as shown:

T=Kb

T = transmissivity, the capacity of an aquifer to transmit water (L2/T)

b = saturated thickness of the aquifer (L)

The units of transmissivity are L2/T. The term transmissibility is an outdated

term that is occasionally used for transmissivity. Transmissivity describes the
overall transmission capacity of an aquifer system, not just the properties of
a small volume of the aquifer. For example, if the hydraulic conductivity of a
confined aquifer is 100 m/d and the thickness is 10 m, then T is 1,000 m2/d.
If another aquifer has a hydraulic conductivity of 50 m/d and is 300 m thick,
its transmissivity is T = 15,000 m2/d. The higher T of the second aquifer
indicates that it can transmit more water, thus if all else is equal, it would be
a better target for a water supply well. Aquifers with multiple horizontal layers
with different hydraulic conductivities can be represented by the sum of
the T value for each layer.

The transmissivity of a confined aquifer of uniform thickness is a constant

value for an isotropic and homogeneous set of conditions as shown in Figure
below. By definition the head of a confined aquifer is higher than the top of
the aquifer, so the complete thickness of the confined aquifer is saturated,
thus b is a constant when T is determined. The saturated thickness of an
unconfined aquifer varies with space as the water table slopes in the
direction of flow, thus, T values change with distance from a given location.
When the water table slope is small, a single value of T is commonly used to
represent the aquifer. In areas with large water table gradients, average
thickness may be used to compute one representative value of T.