Transient solutions to groundwater mounding in bounded and unbounded aquifers

Abstract

In this study, the well-known Hantush solution procedure for groundwater mounding under infinitely long infiltration strips is extended to finite and semi-infinite aquifer cases. Initially, the solution for infinite aquifers is presented and compared to those available in literature and to the numerical results of MODFLOW. For the finite aquifer case, the method of images, which is commonly used in well hydraulics, is used to be able to represent the constant-head boundaries at both sides. It is shown that a finite number of images is enough to obtain the results and sustain the steady state. The effect of parameters on the growth of the mound and on the time required to reach the steady state is investigated. The semi-infinite aquifer case is emphasized because the growth of the mound is not symmetric. As the constant-head boundary limits the growth, the unbounded side grows continuously. For this reason, the groundwater divide shifts toward the unbounded side. An iterative solution procedure is proposed. To perform the necessary computations a code was written in Visual Basic of which the algorithm is presented. The proposed methodology has a wide range of applicability and this is demonstrated using two practical examples. The first one is mounding under a stormwater dispersion trench in an infinite aquifer and the other is infiltration from a flood control channel into a semi-infinite aquifer. Results fit very well with those of MODFLOW.