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AN INTEGRATED VIEW OF GROUNDWATER FLOW CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING IN FRACTURED GEOLOGIC MEDIA
Citation:
Wang, M. AND R. Earle. AN INTEGRATED VIEW OF GROUNDWATER FLOW CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING IN FRACTURED GEOLOGIC MEDIA. Presented at 2004 US EPA/NGWA Fractured Rock Conf, Portland, ME, September 13 - 15, 2004.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
The particular attributes of fractured geologic media pertaining to groundwater flow characterization and modeling are presented. These cover the issues of fracture network and hydraulic control of fracture geometry parameters, major and minor fractures, heterogeneity, anisotropy, preferential flow, and groundwater flow direction and head distribution. Specifically, the results from numerical investigations and their implications about the effect of fracture geometry parameters on hydraulic behaviors in fractured rocks are presented briefly. Furthermore, the conceptual groundwater flow models that account for both major and minor fractures in 2D or 3D flow fields are concisely discussed. The implementation procedure and brief summary of a case study, for both the discrete fracture network fluid flow approach and the equivalent continuum approach regarding estimation on REV and hydraulic conductivity tensor through single well packer tests, are presented. Discussions are given about how to understand and apply appropriately those approaches to groundwater flow and contaminant transport modeling in fractured geologic media. Through this study, it is indicated that adequate understanding of the attributes of fractured geologic media and development of the applicable modeling approaches are critical for appropriately characterizing and modeling groundwater flow and contaminant transport, and in turn for efficiently conducting groundwater remediation in fractured geologic media.