Modelling of shallow aquifers in interaction with overland water

TL;DR

This paper introduces new efficient models for water flow in shallow unconfined aquifers, simplifying the classical 3D-Richards model while maintaining accuracy across different time scales and aquifer thicknesses.

Contribution

The authors develop a new class of coupled PDE models that are computationally efficient and accurate, derived through asymptotic analysis and applicable to various aquifer conditions.

Findings

Models match 3D-Richards results at all time scales

New models are computationally less expensive

Models perform well even in non-thin aquifers

Abstract

In this work, we present a class of new efficient models for water flow in shallow unconfined aquifers, giving an alternative to the classical but less tractable 3D-Richards model. Its derivation is guided by two ambitions: any new model should be low cost in computational time and should still give relevant results at every time scale. We thus keep track of two types of flow occurring in such a context and which are dominant when the ratio thickness over longitudinal length is small: the first one is dominant in a small time scale and is described by a vertical 1D-Richards problem; the second one corresponds to a large time scale, when the evolution of the hydraulic head turns to become independent of the vertical variable. These two types of flow are appropriately modelled by, respectively, a one-dimensional and a two-dimensional system of PDEs boundary value problems. They are coupled along an artificial level below which the Dupuit hypothesis holds true (i.e. the vertical flow is instantaneous) in a way ensuring that the global model is mass conservative. Tuning the artificial level, which even can depend on an unknown of the problem, we browse the new class of models. We prove using asymptotic expansions that the 3D-Richards problem and each model of the class behaves the same at every considered time scale (short, intermediate and large) in thin aquifers. The results are illustrated by numerical simulations, showing especially that the new models results fit well with the ones obtained with the original 3d-Richards problem even in non-thin aquifers.