Author(s): Erik Nixdorf; Mike Sips; Peter Morstein

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: Groundwater flow modeling; Hydrostratigraphic simplification; Modeling accuracy; OpenGeoSys; Open-Source

Abstract: Reducing hydrogeological complexity is a crucial step in the development process of many 3D groundwater models aiming to reduce computational costs and to keep the model parsimonious. This study presents a combined approach, leveraging expert knowledge to simplify stratigraphy and analyze changes in geohydraulic simulation outputs based on selected strategies. Hereby we develop and merge two open source tools: “Stratmerge” for calculating simplified stratigraphy extents and parameters as well as “Stacked Parameter Relation” for visual data exploration of geohydraulic ensemble simulations. We test the suitability of our approach by simulating groundwater flow in the sedimentary aquifer of the Selke River Basin in Germany using an underlying hydrogeological model of user-defined complexity. The groundwater flow is simulated by applying the finite element simulator OpenGeoSys 6.4. We demonstrate that our combined approach is feasible and generic, simplifies model construction as well as provides insight into the dependencies between the hydrogeological model setup and the simulation results. Our approach could be used by hydrogeological modelers for a wide variety of aquifers constituted of sedimentary granular material.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/iahr-hic2483430201-161

Year: 2024