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Validation of an analytical model of groundwater velocity based on laboratory test and numerical simulation

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Abstract

Surface water–groundwater exchange affects the material and energy transfer of rivers and adjacent riparian zones. As an intuitive carrier of energy, temperature can effectively reflect the spatial and temporal variation of surface water–groundwater exchange process. In this paper, the influence of water head variation and sand sample uniformity on its temperature field and seepage field is studied through a one-dimensional sand column laboratory test. To verify the accuracy of the one-dimensional vertical heat analysis model, the vertical seepage velocity measured in the indoor test is compared with the vertical submerged exchange rate calculated by the four analysis models. The results show that the Hatch analytical solution, Keery analytical solution, McCallum analytical solution and Luce analytical solution calculated by VFLUX2 through MATLAB are reliable for calculating the vertical undercurrent exchange rate of the heterogeneous sand column.

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(adapted from Schmidt et al. 2006)

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Program 2022TD-01 for Shaanxi Provincial Innovative Research Team and the Key Scientific Research Project of the Education Department of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 20JS102) and Supported by the Open Research Fund Program of State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology (Grant No. 2021KFKT-3), and Supported by Open Research Fund Program of State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering Sichuan University (Grant No. SKHL2106).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, China

    Jie Ren, Jinjin Zhang & Dabo Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Jie Ren

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  1. Jie Ren
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  2. Jinjin Zhang
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Contributions

Jie Ren, Jinjin Zhang and Dabo Wang wrote the main manuscript text and Jinjin Zhang prepared figures 1-2 and Dabo Wang prepared figures 3-6. Jie Ren reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jie Ren.

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Ren, J., Zhang, J. & Wang, D. Validation of an analytical model of groundwater velocity based on laboratory test and numerical simulation. Environ Earth Sci 82, 258 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-10959-3

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