Growth of Ground‐Water Mound in Response to Recharge

Abstract

ABSTRACTIt was proposed that the horizontal extent of the ground‐water mound is limited for finite times of recharge from strip basins even in infinite aquifers. A method of identifying the extent of the ground‐water mound using solutions of the equation of flow for finite aquifers was suggested. These solutions were obtained using two different procedures of linearization, those of Baumann and Hantush, and Laplace transforms. The resulting expressions were of a general nature and the equations of Hantush for infinite aquifers were shown to follow as a special case. The range of validity of the two procedures of linearization was tested using experimental results from sand tank models of finite aquifers, available in literature. The Baumann linearization was valid (correct to within ±5 percent of experimental values) up to a water table rise less than 0.4 times the initial height of the water table. The Hantush linearization was valid (correct to within ±2 percent of experimental values) for the entire range of water table rise studied, i.e. up to three times the initial height of the water table. The Hantush procedure was thus shown to have wider applicability. However, both procedures were found to yield results which have satisfactory agreement with experimental results over larger ranges than earlier reported for infinite aquifers.The effect of variation of the horizontal extent of the recharge mound on the water table profile was studied by treating the limit of the horizontal mound itself as a parameter. The water table rise was computed using the Hantush linearization procedure for different values of the ratio B/L (B/L = 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and ∞) where 2B is the horizontal extent of the mound and 2L the width of the recharge strip. The finite extent of the ground‐water mound in an infinite aquifer was given by that value of B/L for which the predicted profile was identical to that produced when B/L =∞.