GIS Vector and Raster Database, Advanced Geostatistics and 3-D Groundwater Flow Modelling in Strongly Heterogeneous Geologic Media: An Integrated Approach

The aquifers of the Rhône valley in Switzerland are of great economic importance. The groundwaters are exploitable at slight costs. However, their situation make them specially vulnerable. The aim of this paper is to give a brief outlook on the methodology to build a very powerful three dimensional hydrogeological model. This model will be used by the community of Valais as a tool for the management and protection of the groundwater. ArcInfo [9] and ArcView [10] are employed as geographic information system and Oracle [15] and Access [1] as database management system on workstation and personal computer. The advanced geostatistical treatment of spatial basic data is carried out through several techniques (Surfer [17], Isatis [11] and ArcInfo). The 3-D hydrogeological mathematical model are based on the finite element method (Feflow [7] and FEN derived from FEM 301 [14]).