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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Simulating Flood‐Induced Riverbed Transience Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Physically Based Hydrological Modeling, and the Ensemble Kalman Filter
    (2018-11)
    Tang, Qi
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    Kurtz, W.
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    Vereecken, H.
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    Hendricks Franssen, Harrie-Jan
    Abstract Flood events can change the riverbed topography as well as the riverbed texture and structure, which in turn can influence the riverbed hydraulic conductivity (Krb) and river-aquifer exchange fluxes. A major flood event occurred in the Emme River in Switzerland in 2014, with major implications for the riverbed structure. The event was simulated with the fully integrated hydrological model HydroGeoSphere. The aim was to investigate the effect of the spatial and temporal variability of riverbed topography and Krb on predictions of hydraulic states and fluxes and to test whether data assimilation (DA) based on the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) can better reproduce flood-induced changes to hydraulic states and parameters with the help of riverbed topography changes recorded with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and through-water photogrammetry. The performance of DA was assessed by evaluating the reproduction of the hydraulic states for the year 2015. While the prediction of surface water discharge was not affected much by the changes in riverbed topography and in Krb, using the UAV-derived postflood instead of the preflood riverbed topography reduced the root-mean-square error of predicted heads (RMSE [h]) by 24%. If, in addition to using the postflood riverbed topography, also Krb and aquifer hydraulic conductivity (Kaq) were updated through DA after the flood, the RMSE (h) was reduced by 55%. We demonstrate how updating of Krb and Kaq based on EnKF and UAV-based observations of riverbed topography transience after a major flood event strongly improve predictions of postflood hydraulic states.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Estimating the Spatial Extent of Unsaturated Zones in Heterogeneous River Aquifer Systems
    (2017-10) ;
    Irvine, Dylan J.
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    Hendricks Franssen, Harrie-Jan
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    The presence of unsaturated zones at the river‐aquifer interface has large implications on numerous hydraulic and chemical processes. However, the hydrological and geological controls that influence the development of unsaturated zones have so far only been analyzed with simplified conceptualizations of flow processes, or homogeneous conceptualizations of the hydraulic conductivity in either the aquifer or the riverbed. We systematically investigated the influence of heterogeneous structures in both the riverbed and the aquifer on the development of unsaturated zones. A stochastic 1‐D criterion that takes both riverbed and aquifer heterogeneity into account was developed using a Monte Carlo sampling technique. The approach allows the reliable estimation of the upper bound of the spatial extent of unsaturated areas underneath a riverbed. Through systematic numerical modeling experiments, we furthermore show that horizontal capillary forces can reduce the spatial extent of unsaturated zones under clogged areas. This analysis shows how the spatial structure of clogging layers and aquifers influence the propensity for unsaturated zones to develop: In riverbeds where clogged areas are made up of many small, spatially disconnected patches with a diameter in the order of 1 m, unsaturated areas are less likely to develop compared to riverbeds where large clogged areas exist adjacent to unclogged areas. A combination of the stochastic 1‐D criterion with an analysis of the spatial structure of the clogging layers and the potential for resaturation can help develop an appropriate conceptual model and inform the choice of a suitable numerical simulator for river‐aquifer systems.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    The influence of riverbed heterogeneity patterns on river-aquifer exchange fluxes under different connection regimes
    (2017-9)
    Tang, Qi
    ;
    Kurtz, W.
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    ; ;
    Vereecken, H.
    ;
    Hendricks Franssen, Harrie-Jan
    Riverbed hydraulic conductivity (K) is a critical parameter for the prediction of exchange fluxes between a river and an aquifer. In this study, the role of heterogeneity patterns was explored using the fully integrated hydrological model HydroGeoSphere simulating complex, variably saturated subsurface flow. A synthetic 3-D river-aquifer reference model was constructed with a heterogeneous riverbed using nonmulti-Gaussian patterns in the form of meandering channels. Data assimilation was used to test the ability of different riverbed K patterns to reproduce hydraulic heads, riverbed K and river-aquifer exchange fluxes. Both fully saturated as well as variably saturated conditions underneath the riverbed were tested. The data assimilation experiments with the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) were carried out for four types of geostatistical models of riverbed K fields: (i) spatially homogeneous, (ii) heterogeneous with multiGaussian distribution, (iii) heterogeneous with non-multi-Gaussian distribution (channelized structures) and (iv) heterogeneous with non-multi-Gaussian distribution (elliptic structures). For all data assimilation experiments, state variables and riverbed K were updated by assimilating hydraulic heads. For saturated conditions, heterogeneous geostatistical models allowed a better characterization of net exchange fluxes than a homogeneous approximation. Among the three heterogeneous models, the performance of non-multi-Gaussian models was superior to the performance of the multi-Gaussian model, but the two tested non-multi-Gaussian models showed only small differences in performance from one another. For the variably saturated conditions both the multi-Gaussian model and the homogeneous model performed clearly worse than the two non-multi-Gaussian models. The two non-multi-Gaussian models did not show much difference in performance. This clearly shows that characterizing heterogeneity of riverbed K is important. Moreover, particularly under variably saturated flow conditions the mean and the variance of riverbed K do not provide enough information for exchange flux characterization and additional histogram information of riverbed K provides crucial information for the reproduction of exchange fluxes.