Inverse modeling of interbed parameters and transmissivity using land subsidence and drawdown data

Abstract

Accurate modeling of hydraulic properties such as transmissivity and interbed specific storages is significant for reliable predictions of land subsidence modeling. Calibration of land subsidence model is a challenge because of the strong non-linearity of groundwater flow equation especially when it accounting for the interbed drainage process. Pumping well drawdown and land subsidence data are very important signals for identification of aquifer hydraulic properties. In this work, it is proposed that the ensemble Kalman filter is used to calibrate the transmissivity and interbed elastic and inelastic specific storages using both drawdown and subsidence data for the first time. A synthetic example demonstrated that the characterization of transmissivity and specific storages is improved, and the uncertainties of predictions of both drawdown and subsidence are reduced, when additional dynamic observation data are used for inverse modeling. Issues such as how to account for interferometric synthetic aperture radar data, which may be encountered using the EnKF for real case studies, are discussed.