Objectives: Determine the travel time of groundwater between two wells.
1. There are particular cases in Hydrogeology where it is helpful to determine the velocity of groundwater flow. One application is to use the groundwater velocity to identify the travel time of a particle of water within an aquifer. This can be very helpful when predicting the time it takes a contaminant to travel to a drinking water well. In order to determine the velocity of groundwater flow it is necessary to know the specific discharge (q) and the area over which the groundwater is flowing through (i.e. the effective porosity). Using the foldable aquifer model given below please answer the following questions. Assume for this problem that the effective porosity of the gravel aquifer is 0.21 and the distance between well A and B is 550m.
A. Identify is the direction of groundwater flow (i.e. Well A to B or Well B to A).
B. Quantify the travel time between wells in the gravel aquifer.
C. Determine the total groundwater discharge (Q) through the confined gravel aquifer.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.