Programming and evaluation of the 2D Hantush analytical solution for artificial recharge of aquifers

Abstract

The method of artificial recharge of aquifers represents an opportunity to answer many problems related to the management of water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. However, before installation and management of water infiltration, structures require planning in the design through forecasting tools, which can simulate scenarios of evolution of the hydraulic mound formed under this charging device. In this context, several analytical solutions have been developed (Baumann in Trans ASCE 117:1024–1060, 1952; Glover in Mathematical derivations as pertain to ground-water recharge. In: United States Department of Agriculture, western soil and water management research branch, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1960; Hantush in Water Resour Res 3(1):227–234, 1967; Hunt in J Hydraul Div 97(7):1017–1030, 1971; Marino in Growth and decay of ground-water ridges in response to deep percolation. MS thesis, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico, 1965, J Res Geophys 72:1195, 1967; Rao and Sarma in Groundwater 19(3):270–274, 1981) and others, which predict the evolution of the hydraulic mound and its geometry from input parameters which represent some properties of the aquifer and recharge control data. We have proposed for this work, a detailed study of the analytical solution of Hantush (1967), through a comparison with experimental data of Bianchi and Haskell in (Field observations of transient ground water mounds produced by artificial recharge into an unconfined aquifer. In: USDA Agricultural Research Services Rapport ARS W-27, p 27, 1975), a sensitivity study of the different input parameters of the model such as the geometry of the Infiltration basin, hydraulic conductivity, storage coefficient, recharge rate and saturated aquifer thickness. Finally, we did a case study of this applied model to the Mnasra basin, in the northwest of Morocco. The solution shows reasonable estimates of the evolution of the hydraulic mound, and could be a good forecasting tool; however, the non-respect of the initial assumptions of the model, such as the homogeneity of the soil, can induce some errors in the estimation of the height and shape of the hydraulic mound.