1.72: Groundwater Hydrology

 

Instructor:                 Charles F. Harvey, charvey@mit.edu

                                    Phone:  258-0392

                     

Lectures:  Monday and Wednesday 2:30 – 4:00

  

Field Trip:  Let’s dream! -- sometime in May? Cape Cod, USGS experimental site. Lunch Provided.

 

Assignments:  Assignments are due one to three weeks after they are handed-out, depending on their length. 

                     

Grading:

Problem Sets                           45%

Paper Critiques                       10%.    (Short written and in class participation)

Midterm                                  15%     (In class, open notes)

Final                                        30%     (Take home, open notes)

                                   

Class webpage: The course is on Canvas

Class material: Lecture slides a posted in Canvas.  Most of the material is covered in the book, Physical and Chemical Hydrogeology, P.A Domenico and F. W. Schwartz, Wiley & Sons, N.Y. and also Groundwater, Freeze and Cherry, 1979.  These are recommended but not required.

Course description:  The fundamentals of subsurface flow and transport, emphasizing the role of groundwater in the hydrologic cycle, the relation of groundwater flow to geologic structure, and the management of groundwater. Topics include the Darcy equation, flow nets, mass conservation, the aquifer flow equation, heterogeneity and anisotropy, storage properties, regional circulation, unsaturated flow, recharge, stream-aquifer interaction, well hydraulics, flow through fractured rock, numerical models, groundwater quality, contaminant transport processes, dispersion, decay, and adsorption. Includes laboratory and computer demonstrations.

 

 

Outline

 

1. Hydrology Basics

• The hydrologic cycle
• Water budgets

 

2. Groundwater Physics  (Bangladesh Water Budget Homework)

• Darcy's Law and hydraulic potential         

• The steady-state groundwater flow equation
• Streamlines and flownets

 

3. Groundwater Hydrology (Davis Basin Homework)

• Regional flow and geologic controls on flow            

• Groundwater interaction with streams and lakes

 

3. Transient Flow

• Aquifer storage and compressibility
• Case Study: Geologic Carbon Sequestration

 

2. Groundwater models and calculations (Numerical modeling homework)
   

• Numerical methods
• Well hydraulics, Pump tests

 

3. Solute Transport

• Advection and dispersion
• Sorption and diffusive mass transfer
• Coastal Groundwater – Saltwater/Freshwater interaction

 

4. Isotopes and tracers of groundwater flow

 

5. Vadose zone hydrology

• Unsaturated flow, retention curves and Richard’s equation
• Infiltration and evapotranspiration