Numerical solution for water table rise estimation behind deep underground dam.

ABSTRACT

A comprehensive numerical approach has been developed to solve the transient groundwater level changes due to the construction of underground dams. This method assumes no flow takes place through the dam and does not require knowledge of either the dam hydraulic properties or information about downstream water table changing level or aquifer geometry beyond the dam site. It couples the solution of the general groundwater flow equation with a modified equation derived at the lower boundary nodes of the simulated domain. The robustness of this method has been tested against simulations of the full groundwater equation for different time periods of up to 50 years with different aquifer characteristics. Comparison shows good agreement between the developed model outputs and the full groundwater flow equation simulated results, under the different simulated scenarios.