Registros de alta resolución de la conductividad hidráulica saturada en testigos de perforaciones usando mediciones de permeabilidad al aire

Abstract

Saturated hydraulic conductivity (K s) is one of the most important parameters determining groundwater flow and contaminant transport in both unsaturated and saturated porous media. The hand-held air permeameter technique was investigated for high-resolution hydraulic conductivity determination on borehole cores using a spatial resolution of ∼0.05 m. The suitability of such air permeameter measurements on friable to poorly indurated sediments was tested to improve the spatial prediction of classical laboratory-based K s measurements obtained at a much lower spatial resolution (∼2 m). In total, 368 K s measurements were made on ∼350 m of borehole cores originating from the Campine basin, northern Belgium, while ∼5,230 air permeability measurements were performed on the same cores, resulting in a K s range of seven orders of magnitude. Cross-validation demonstrated that, using air permeameter data as the secondary variable for laboratory based K s measurements, the performance increased from R 2 = 0.35 for ordinary kriging (laboratory K s only) to R 2 = 0.61 for co-kriging. The separate treatment of horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivity revealed considerable anisotropy in certain lithostratigraphical units, while others were clearly isotropic at the sample scale. Air permeameter measurements on borehole cores provide a cost-effective way to improve spatial predictions of traditional laboratory based K s.