Analytical study of dual‐porosity coastal aquifer with generalized nonlinear water transfer term

Abstract

AbstractThis study proposes a new mathematical model for the hydraulic head distribution induced by the tidal wave in fractured coastal aquifers. The flow in the fractured aquifer is described by adopting the well‐known dual‐porosity (DP) concept. It simply describes the interaction of the flow between the fractures and matrix blocks. The past studies commonly used the lumped‐distributed approach, a first‐order mass transfer approximation, to reflect such a flow interaction. Herein, we incorporate a new generalized transfer term (GTT) into the DP model. The weighting factor in the GTT is capable of reflecting the geometrical properties of the matrix flow. The GTT can reduce to the first‐ and second‐order terms by setting the weight to zero and one, respectively. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis is used to delve into the impacts of the aquifer parameters on the flow response in the coast aquifer, and the effects of the model parameters on the head amplitude and phase shift are explored in this study. The sensitivity analysis is performed to assess the hydraulic properties of the coast aquifer in response to the hydraulic head. Overall, we believe that the present model facilitates in developing sound plans of water resources management in coastal regions.