Abstract
As a major and popular groundwater extraction structure, seepage wells are often used to transfer river water into aquifers for harvesting water resources. It can help ameliorate the imbalance between supply and demand, in particular, in areas of water scarcity. Large drawdowns due to pumping may cause the river to disconnect from the groundwater and form an unsaturated zone, which seriously affects the efficiency of seepage wells. However, most of the current models of extraction structures of non-tube wells account for only saturated flow and do not consider unsaturated conditions. To address this limitation, a saturated–unsaturated coupling model was developed using the exchange flow rate between the well pipe and the aquifer as the coupling point. Moreover, the model was evaluated with physical simulation test data. The statistical results indicated that the model could estimate the drawdown and pumping rate well with root-mean-square deviations of 0.0114 m and 0.0079 L s−1, respectively, for a river with strong leakage capacity; and 0.0129 m and 0.0099 L s−1, respectively, for a river with weak leakage capacity. The critical drawdown, where the river disconnects from the aquifer, as well as variations of the unsaturated zone, was also discussed. The present study provides important information for the design of seepage wells with reasonable drawdown, while being able to predict the potential water yield, and at the same time help protect the groundwater environment.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the 908 Team of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology, and the Research Institute of Exploration and Development, PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Branch Company for offering financial support. We acknowledge the Ecoenvironmental Protection Forum of the Yellow River Basin for giving us this opportunity to submit and publish. We are grateful to Professor Peiyue Li for editing and reviewing the paper. We are sincerely grateful to all reviewers and the editors for their meaningful comments, which have helped us to improve the quality of the original manuscript.
Funding
This study was sponsored by the Shaanxi Geological and Mining Corporation (Grant No. KY201503). This research was also funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, CHD (Grant No. 300102290401).
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XK designed the experiment, established the model, and wrote the manuscript. Wei Wang guided the experiment, established the mathematical model, and edited the manuscript. XX analyzed the data and draw the figures. JL checked the manuscript for error and submitted the manuscript. HH collected all the experiment data. All authors participated in and finished the experiment, gave comments, and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
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Ke, X., Wang, W., Xu, X. et al. A saturated–unsaturated coupling model for groundwater flowing into seepage wells: a modeling study for groundwater development in river basins. Environ Earth Sci 80, 711 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-10035-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-10035-8