AQUIFER AND ITS

TYPES
EGE 05 2005
ANAGHA S MOHAN
What is an Aquifer?
 An aquifer may be defined as a body of porous rock or sediment saturated with
water.
 Ground water enters an aquifer as precipitation seeps through the soil. This
water moves through the aquifer and resurface through springs and wells.
 The formations that serve as good aquifers include:
Unconsolidated gravels, sands, alluvium.
Lake sediments, Glacial deposits.
Sandstones.
Limestone with cavities.
TYPES OF AQUIFERS
 Aquifers may be classified as confined and unconfined depending on the presence or absence
of water table, while a leaky aquifer represents a combination of both types.

1. UNCONFINED AQUIFERS:
 Also called PHREATIC AQUIFERS.
 If there is homogeneous porous formation extending from the ground surface up to an
impervious bed underneath, rainwater percolating down in the soil saturates the formation and
builds up the ground water table (GWT).
 This aquifer under water table conditions is called an unconfined aquifer (water-table aquifer)
and well drilled into this aquifer is called a water table well.
Fig 1
Schematic cross section
illustrating unconfined and
confined aquifers.
 Special case of unconfined aquifers
 A special case of unconfined aquifers involves perched water bodies as illustrated in
fig.2 .
 This occurs wherever a groundwater body is separated from the main ground water
by a relatively impermeable stratum of small areal extent and by the zone of aeration
above the main body of ground water.
 Clay lenses in sedimentary deposits often have perched waterbodies overlying them.
 Wells tapping these sources yield only temporary or small quantities of water.
 These aquifers are commonly called PERCHED AQUIFERS.
Fig.2
Sketch of perched water
bodies.
2. CONFINED AQUIFERS
 They are also called PRESSURE AQUIFERS.
 It occurs when ground water is confined under pressure greater than the atmospheric
pressure by an overlying impermeable strata.
 If a porous formation underneath is sandwiched between two impervious strata (aquicludes)
and is recharged by a natural source (recharge area) at a higher elevation so that the water
is under pressure in the aquifer (like pipe flow), i.e., artesian condition.
 Such an aquifer is called an artesian aquifer or confined aquifer.
 If a well is drilled into an artesian aquifer, the water level rises in the well to its initial level at
the recharge source called the piezometric surface/potentiometric surface.
 If the piezometric surface is above the ground level at the location of the well, the well is
called ‘flowing artesian well’ since the water flows out of the well like a spring, and
 if the piezometric surface is below the ground level at the well location, the well is called a
non-flowing artesian well.
Fig 1
Schematic cross section
illustrating unconfined and
confined aquifers.
NOTE: A confined aquifer
becomes unconfined if the
potentiometric surface falls
below the bottom of the upper
confining bed.
Also, quite commonly an
unconfined aquifers exists
above a confined one.
3. LEAKY AQUIFER
 Aquifers that are completely confined or unconfined occurs less frequently than do
leaky or semiconfined aquifers(fig.3).
 It is a common feature in alluvial valleys or plains where a permeable stratum is
overlain or underlain by a semipervious aquitard or semi confining layer.
 Pumping from a well in a leaky aquifer removes water in 2 major ways:
 Horizontal flow within the aquifer.
 Vertical flow through aquitard into aquifer.
Fig 3
Sketch of a leaky or semi
confined aquifer.
4. IDEALIZED AQUIFER
 For mathematical calculations of storage and ground water flow, aquifers are
frequently assumed be homogenous or isotropic.
 A homogenous aquifer possesses hydrological properties that are identical
everywhere.
 An isotropic aquifers properties are independent of direction.
 Such idealized aquifers do not exist ; however good quantitative approximations are
taken by these assumptions.
REFERENCE
 HYDROLOGY: Principles, Analysis, Design by H.M RAGHUNATH.
 Groundwater Hydrology by DAVID KEITH TODD.
THANK YOU!