Abstract
Under high ground water levels, thick multi-aquifer sandy strata without aquitards threaten the safe construction of underground structures, which frequently caused severe ground subsidence and damages to adjacent urban environments. Despite this, currently few researches about the hydraulic and ground responses due to pumping in such strata were available in literature. Construction of subways in Nantong, a typical coastal city located at the estuary area of the Yangtze River in China and featuring thick water-rich sandy strata, provided a rare chance for investigation on this topic. Based on comprehensive field pumping tests, both the hydraulic and ground response of the full-profile water-rich sandy strata due to dewatering were explored first. Then, both analytical and numerical methods were adopted for in-depth analyses. The results indicate that due to the absence of aquitards, there existed a strong hydraulic connection between the aquifers. Apart from the hydraulic parameters, the hydraulic recharge between aquifers has impact on the hydraulic performance as well when pumping was carried out at different burial depths. On the basis of considering the hydraulic performance of aquifers and the hydraulic connection between them, the optimal pumping scheme for underground construction or domestic water use was discussed. The findings of this study provide an insight into the distinctive full-profile water-rich sandy strata and can help engineers adopt appropriate measures to deal with pumping works under similar geohydrology conditions.
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Data Availability
All data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- \(a\) :
-
The horizontal distance between point B and well screen
- \({a}_{1}\) :
-
The horizontal distance between point B and well screen when drawdown at point B is 0.1 m
- \({a}_{2}\) :
-
The horizontal distance between point B and well screen when drawdown at point B is 0.5 m
- \({B}_{i}\) :
-
The thickness of aquifer \(i\)
- \({b}_{1}\) :
-
The vertical distance between point A and point B
- \({b}_{2}\) :
-
The vertical distance between point B and point C
- \(d\) :
-
The horizontal distance from the well screen
- \({d}_{v}\) :
-
The vertical coordinate of the bottom of the screen
- \({D}_{{\text{inner}}}\) :
-
The inner diameter of the wells
- \({D}_{{\text{outer}}}\) :
-
The outer diameter of the wells
- \({e}_{1}\) :
-
The eccentricity of the upper half-ellipse
- \({e}_{2}\) :
-
The eccentricity of the lower half-ellipse
- \(h\) :
-
The hydraulic head at time \(t\)
- \({h}_{u}\) :
-
The burial depth of point A
- \({h}_{m}\) :
-
The burial depth of point B
- \({h}_{b}\) :
-
The burial depth of point C
- \({h}_{w}\) :
-
The burial depth of well screen
- \({h}_{0}(x, y, z)\) :
-
The initial hydraulic head at point \((x, y, z)\)
- \(H\) :
-
Burial depth of the well bottom
- \(H_{1} (x,y,z,t)\) :
-
The constant head on boundary \(\Gamma_{1}\)
- \(K\) :
-
The simplified hydraulic conductivity of a single aquifer
- \({K}_{\text{ij}}\) :
-
Hydraulic conductivity
- \({K}_{xx}\) :
-
Hydraulic conductivity in \({\text{n}}_{\text{x}}\) direction
- \({K}_{yy}\) :
-
Hydraulic conductivity in \({\text{n}}_{y}\) direction
- \({K}_{zz}\) :
-
Hydraulic conductivity in \({\text{n}}_{\text{z}}\) direction
- \({K}_{hi}\) :
-
The horizontal conductivities of layer \(i\)
- \({K}_{vi}\) :
-
The vertical conductivities of layer \(i\)
- \({K}_{h}\) :
-
The horizontal conductivities
- \({K}_{v}\) :
-
The vertical conductivities
- \({K}_{ri}\) :
-
The radical conductivity of aquifer \(i\)
- \({K}_{zi}\) :
-
The vertical conductivity of aquifer \(i\)
- \(l\) :
-
The vertical coordinate of the top of the screen
- \({M}_{i}\) :
-
The thickness of layer \(i\)
- \(n_{x} ,n_{y} ,n_{z}\) :
-
Unit normal vector on boundary \(\Gamma_{2}\) along the \(x\), \(y\) and \(z\) directions
- \({\text{Q}}\) :
-
Pumping rate
- \({Q}_{f}\) :
-
The final well discharge
- \({Q}_{1}\) :
-
The initial well discharge
- \(q(x,y,z,t)\) :
-
The lateral recharge per unit area on boundary \(\Gamma_{2}\)
- \(R\) :
-
The radius of influence caused by pumping
- \(r\) :
-
The radical coordinate
- \({r}_{A}\) :
-
The horizontal distance between point A and well screen
- \(S\) :
-
The total drawdown caused by the entire well screen
- \(s\) :
-
Drawdown at space caused by pumping
- \({S}_{s}\) :
-
Specific storage
- \({S}_{si}\) :
-
The specific storage of aquifer \(i\)
- \({s}_{i}\left(r,z,t\right)\) :
-
The drawdown at space and time coordinate
- \(\Delta s\) :
-
Drawdown caused by the finite sink line
- \(t\) :
-
Elapsed time
- \({T}_{s}\) :
-
Starting time
- \({T}_{e}\) :
-
Ending time
- \({t}_{p}\) :
-
Pumping time
- \({t}_{r}\) :
-
Recovery time
- \(z\) :
-
The vertical coordinate
- \({z}_{A}\) :
-
The vertical distance between point A and the well screen
- \(\Delta z\) :
-
A finite sink line of well screen
- \(\Gamma_{1}\) :
-
The first type of boundary condition
- \(\Gamma_{2}\) :
-
The second type of boundary condition
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 42177179. The support for field pumping tests from Nantong Urban Transit Transportation Company is sincerely appreciated.
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DF: conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft, visualization. YT: conceptualization, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. YT: resources, writing review and editing. DW: resources.
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Fan, D., Tan, Y., Tang, Y. et al. Evaluation of dewatering-induced hydraulic and ground responses of thick multi-aquifer sandy strata without aquitards. Environ Earth Sci 83, 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-11315-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-11315-1