Abstract
Pumping tests are usually performed under the multilayered aquifer system. The exact determination of hydraulic properties of each aquifer is very important for the correct groundwater flow prediction. It is, however, difficult to analyze the data obtained from the pumping test under these conditions “analytically”.
In this paper, a new approach to parameter determination methodology is presented which estimates the soil hydraulic properties from pumping test data with the aid of Genetic algorithms (GA). GA belong to a family of increasingly popular global optimization methods that are designed to overcome the multimodality of the objective function without incurring the enormous expense of exhaustive search. GA are based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics, which combine an artificial survival of the fittest with genetic operators abstracted from nature. The advantages of the proposed method are in the possibility of identifying the optimal hydraulic properties of aquifers. Pumping test data which are simulated under the multilayered conditions are used to evaluate availability of our proposed method.
