Identification of System Parameters for a Groundwater Flow Model

Abstract

Identification of system parameters such as transmissivity and the storage coefficient has been one of the major difficulties preventing the utilization of a simulation model of regional groundwater flow. The accuracy of the mathematical model mainly depends on that of the estimated system parameters. Nevertheless, little research has been done on the identification of widely distributed system parameters. As a substitution for empirical trial and error procedures, an inverse method to identify system parameters using spatially distributed values of hydraulic heads is presented in this paper. In this method, Galerkin-finite element techniques coupled with the least square method were applied to the inverse problem. Using this method, the system parameters of the groundwater flow system in the Yamashina basin, Kyoto City, were identified. A comparison of the simulation result using the inversely identified system parameters with the observed result showed good agreement.