Why mixed groundwater at the outlet of open flowing wells in unconfined-aquifer basins can represent deep groundwater: implications for sampling in long-screen wells

Abstract

Groundwater sampled at the outlets of uncased flowing wells in a thick unconfined aquifer, which has undergone mixing, has been found to have hydrochemistry similar to deep groundwater in discharge areas. To identify the hydrodynamic causes, transient models of groundwater flow and age in a three-dimensional homogeneous unit basin with flowing wells are constructed to obtain flow rates in wells and groundwater mean age around wells. Inflow of groundwater to the well in the deep part leads to mixing of groundwater from different sources, and the finally mixed groundwater is found to have the same age as groundwater in the aquifer at a specific depth, termed the equivalent position (EP). EP is always found in the lower half of the flowing well, indicating that a mixed sample at the outlet could represent deep groundwater. Outflow from the well to the unconfined aquifer in the shallow part results in aging of groundwater around the well. For fully penetrating flowing wells in confined aquifers, EP is found in the upper half of the aquifer. The different relative depths of EP to the screen interval in the two types of flowing wells are mainly due to the profiles of horizontal velocity in the inflow segment, which is basically uniform in a confined aquifer but increases from zero to a maximum value in unconfined aquifers. Thus, groundwater at the outlets of topography-controlled flowing wells is a window of the deep part of a basin, and existing long-screen wells could have the potential for groundwater sampling.