Can the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer be determined using surface displacement data? A case study

SALEHIAN GHAMSARI, Sona; Van Dam, Tonie; HALE, Jack

doi:10.1016/j.acags.2025.100242

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Can the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer be determined using surface displacement data? A case study

SALEHIAN GHAMSARI, Sona; Van Dam, Tonie; HALE, Jack

2025 • In Applied Computing and Geosciences, 26, p. 100242

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10.1016/j.acags.2025.100242

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Keywords :

anisotropic hydraulic conductivity; poroelasticity; aquifer system; InSAR; finite element method

Abstract :

[en] Due to geological features such as fractures, some aquifers demonstrate strongly anisotropic hydraulic behavior. The goal of this study is to use a poroelastic model to calculate surface displacements given known pumping rates to predict the potential utility of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data for inferring information about anisotropic hydraulic conductivity (AHC) in aquifer systems. To this end, we develop a three-dimensional anisotropic poroelastic model mimicking the main features of the 1994 Anderson Junction aquifer test in southwestern Utah with a 24 to 1 ratio of hydraulic conductivity along the principal axes, previously estimated in the literature using traditional well observation techniques. Under suitable model assumptions, our results show that anisotropy in the hydraulic problem leads to a distinctive elliptical surface displacement pattern centered around the pumping well that could be detected with InSAR. We interpret these results in the context of InSAR acquisition constraints and provide guidelines for designing future pumping tests so that InSAR data can be used to its full potential for improving the characterization of aquifers with anisotropic hydraulic behavior.

Disciplines :

Earth sciences & physical geography
Engineering, computing & technology: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

SALEHIAN GHAMSARI, Sona ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) > Department of Engineering (DoE)

Van Dam, Tonie; University of Utah > Department of Geology and Geophysics > College of Mines and Earth Sciences

HALE, Jack ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) > Department of Engineering (DoE)

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Can the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer be determined using surface displacement data? A case study

Publication date :

01 June 2025

Journal title :

Applied Computing and Geosciences

eISSN :

2590-1974

Publisher :

Elsevier, United Kingdom

Volume :

Pages :

100242

Peer reviewed :

Peer reviewed

Focus Area :

Computational Sciences

Development Goals :

15. Life on land

Additional URL :

https://zenodo.org/records/11060063

FnR Project :

FNR12252781 - Data-driven Computational Modelling And Applications, 2017 (01/09/2018-28/02/2025) - Andreas Zilian

Funders :

FNR - Fonds National de la Recherche

Funding text :

This work was funded in whole, or in part, by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), grant reference PRIDE/17/12252781. For the purposes of open access, and in fulfilment of the obligations arising from the grant agreement, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

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Supplementary material: Can the anisotropic hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer be determined using surface displacement data? A case study

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