A fast simulation method for uncertainty quantification of subsurface flow and transport. Issue 5 (8th May 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meyer, Daniel W.; Tchelepi, Hamdi A.; Jenny, Patrick
• Is Part Of: Water resources research. Volume 49:Issue 5(2013:May)
• Page Start: 2359
• Page End: 2379
• Publication Date: 2013-05-08
• Subjects: Lagrangian velocity process -- macrodispersion -- heterogeneity -- MVP -- uncertainty quantification -- Markovian velocity process; Hydrology -- Periodicals; 333.91
• DOI: 10.1002/wrcr.20240
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0043-1397

Abstract

Key Points: new polar Markovian velocity processes (PMVPs) to model macro‐dispersion generalization of PMVPs for inhomogeneous cases with conductivity measurements validation of PMVP with Monte Carlo, CPU‐time PMVP = CPU‐time MC / 1000 Abstract : [1] In subsurface aquifers, dispersion of contaminant, or tracer, is mainly driven by spatial fluctuations in the flow field caused by heterogeneity of the hydraulic conductivity. Measurements of conductivity, however, are usually sparse. To assess the resulting uncertainty in the transport of tracers, Monte Carlo (MC) methods are usually applied, where the transport statistics are sampled over a large number of probable hydraulic conductivity realizations. In this paper, an alternative method is described that provides accurate transport statistics at a computational expense that is 3 orders of magnitude lower than conventional MC. The new method is applicable for conductivity fields with multivariate Gaussian characterization involving conductivity measurements for both small and high log‐conductivity variances. The new method is validated against MC for different dispersion scenarios, where the region of interest spans tens of log‐conductivity correlation lengths.