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Modelling Water Flow in Unsaturated Porous Media pp 1–8Cite as

Introduction

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Part of the book series: GeoPlanet: Earth and Planetary Sciences ((GEPS))

Abstract

Soils and rocks in the uppermost layer of Earth’s crust are typically unsaturated, i.e. their pores are filled partially with water and partially with air. Water flow in the unsaturated zone has important implications for protection and management of groundwater resources, as well as for geotechnical engineering, agriculture and other fields of human activity. This book focuses on two aspects of modelling water flow in partially saturated porous media. The first one is related to the computation of the average permeabilities between nodes of a numerical grid. This is an important step in the discretization of the governing equation for unsaturated flow. The second topic concerns the development of large-scale equations describing unsaturated flow in heterogeneous porous media. In this chapter the objective and structure of the book are outlined.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233, Gdansk, Poland

    Adam Szymkiewicz

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  1. Adam Szymkiewicz
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Correspondence to Adam Szymkiewicz .

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Szymkiewicz, A. (2013). Introduction. In: Modelling Water Flow in Unsaturated Porous Media. GeoPlanet: Earth and Planetary Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23559-7_1

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