Advances in Engineering Software 23 (1995) 173-176

Elsevier ScienceLimited Printed in Great Britain ELSEVIER

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Aquifer discharge-recharge as a solution to regional rising groundwater problems

T. Youssef
civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Mataria, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt

(Received 13 October 1994; revised version received 11 July 1995; accepted 21 July 1995) The lack of natural fresh water resourceshas becomeone of the major concernsof the world today. Despite this fact, a considerable portion of the municipality water in urbanized areasis lost through leakagefrom the network, excess irrigation and other ways. Moreover, this lost water often causes rise of the groundwater table which in the turn createsmajor environmental and structural problems. In this work, a method is presented to automatically control the level of the groundwater in urbanized areas and use the excesswater for irrigation and other purposes. The proposed system contains a dewatering scheme, a transportation network, a recharge scheme and a control room. A mathematical model is constructed to regulate the process. For the purpose of illustration, the systemis applied on a hypothetical area which includes the major parametersthat may appear in nature. The obtained results are presentedin a graphical form which showsthe groundwater levelsbefore applying the system and the gradual improvement in their distribution as time goes on after its application.

1 INTRODUCTION In urban areas, the excess use of domestic water in garden irrigation as well as leakage from municipality fresh networks when combined with the infiltration from rain water create a continuous feed to the top groundwater layer. In many cases, the underground natural settings include highly impermeable layers or lenses close to ground level. This causes the groundwater accumulation slightly below or even above the street level which has harmful impacts on the environment and structures. The solution usually includes conservation in water use and introducing means to lower the groundwater levels. Actually many cities suffer severely from this problem while agricultural land in their neighborhood suffer from lack of irrigation water. The idea of this work is to conduct an automatically controlled system that keeps the groundwater level in the urbanized area below a safe level and send the excesswater towards the areas where it is needed. The system conserves permanently a time dependent water balance between the discharge and recharge areas. 2 SYSTEM COMPONENTS The system of aquifer discharge-recharge consists of
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four components. These are:

(i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

Dewatering system Recharge system Transportation system Control room

The dewatering system is located in the area that suffers from the problem of rising groundwater and is designed to lower the groundwater table to a safe level. The safe level as well as the rate and method of dewatering depend on the regional natural settings, type and rigidity of structures. The dewatering system may consist of gravity drains, vertical wells, well points or a combination of them. The system components are distributed in the region in such a way that allows full control of groundwater levels. The recharge system may be a group of deep wells, ponds or a combination of them.lW3 Their type and location depend on the hydraulic properties of the aquifer. In some cases,water treatment may be needed before recharging the water in the aquifer. The transportation system may consist of a single channel or a channel network. The area topography controls the choice of the type and path of the transportation means. The control room is connected to the three systems. It is used to receive data from a group of observation wells that are distributed in the

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T. Youssef

Fig. 1. Componentsof discharge-recharge system. discharge and the recharge areas. The obtained data is analyzed and hence the rates of discharge and recharge at different locations are determined. Consequently, orders are sent to the dewatering and recharge systems for execution. Figure 1 includes the components of the system in a schematic form.

I~~~
Fig. 2. Plan of study region. the free water level. No flow is assumed to cross impermeable boundaries. The method of finite differences is used to solve the flow through porous media boundary value problem in the discharge and recharge regions. The transmission network is treated using the KYPIPE model.5

3 DESCRIPTION OF THE MATHEMATICAL MODEL The application of Darcys Law in the continuity equation leads to the differential equation of flo~.~ Equation (l), which is presented below represent the confined flow through porous media. It can also be applied in free surface flow conditions in the case of small variation in pressure head which is the casetreated in this work. V(TVhJ = S&i/dt + (K/B)@ - h) + Q~S(X xj)S(y - yj) - R in which X7Y t hi T,S are the Cartesian coordinates in the horizontal plane is the time variable is the pressure head in aquifer number i are the transmissivity and storage capacity at the considered location are the discharge and location coordinates of sink (or source) number j, respectively is the infiltration rate are the hydraulic conductivity and thickness of the aquitard respectively that underlies the top aquifers is the pressure head in the aquifer below the aquitard (1) 4 MODEL STUDY AREA The hypothetical model area of about 100km2 is created to test the model. The area is chosen to include all the major parameters that may appear in nature. The value of hydraulic parameters and infiltration rates are chosen to have realistic values. The chosen area is shown in plan and cross-section in Figs 2 and 3 respectively. The area is bounded by a water body on one side and an impermeable boundary on the opposite side. One of the other two sides is assumed to be of constant head while the other is taken to be a free boundary. The underground natural settings consist of two aquifers separated by an aquitard. The hydraulic conductivity of the aquitard is 1.0 e - 6m/s while those of the top and bottom aquifers are 1.0 e - 6m/s and 5~0e - 7 m/s respectively. The shaded rectangular area in Fig. 2 is assumed to be heavily urbanized with an infiltration rate equals 2-O e - 8 m/s. This area is surrounded by an area with less urbanization that produces an infiltration rate of 1.0 e - 8 m/s. No infiltration takes place in the rest of the study region as indicated in the figure.

Qj,xj,Yj
R K, B

In the analysis, the discharge and recharge wells are considered as point sinks and point sources respectively. The gravity drains are treated as lines of known pressure head which equals the level of the drain center line. The boundary condition at any free water body sidesis taken such that the water pressure head in the aquifer equals

Fig. 3. Section X-X in study region.

Aquifer

discharge-recharge

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_ 0 *

TWWPOKTATtOK DIRCAR00 RRCWROL

YCTWOKK WELL WELL I . .._.. * .._... .* \

0.m
0.00 4.00 12.00 16.0

DISTAiFE (Km)

Fig. 6. Groundwaterprofiles. Fig. 4. Locations of wells and transportation lines. The present groundwater level in the area almost coincides with the ground level in part of the urbanized area. The structure conditions in the region imply the lowering of the groundwater level below the ground level by 3.00m but not more than 4.00 m.
5 RESULTS AND ANALYSES

The hydraulic properties of the soil allow the use of vertical wells in the discharge and recharge regions. Use of ponds in the recharge area is also possible, but requires more area than using wells. The mathematical model includes a finite difference network with nodes that are 500m apart. The total number of nodes is 448. The KYPIPE model includes a system of connected pressure lines that passesthrough all discharge and recharge wells. To simplify the analyses, the discharge wells are taken to be having equal discharge rates. Similarly, the recharge rates of the recharge wells are taken to be equal. A solution that satisfies these conditions as well as the mentioned restrictions on the groundwater levels is shown in

Fig. 4. It includes 12 discharge wells and 7 recharge wells that are connected by pressure steel pipe lines with the same diameter (100mm). In Fig. 5, the groundwater level contour lines before the system application at t = 0 and t = 2.00 e + 8 s are drawn. A cross-section that shows the variation of groundwater level with time is presented in Fig. 6. It is found that the variation of water level with time after 2 e + 8 s is negligible. Also, it can be noticed that the groundwater at that time has almost a constant gradient of 0*03m/km. Also, the water mound that existed at t = 0 completely vanishes as the new steady state condition is approached.
6 CONCLUSIONS

In residential areas, losses and excessive use of fresh water causesnot only economic impacts in terms of the water cost but also cause considerable health, environmental and structural damage which may occur as a result of rising groundwater level. The lowering of the groundwater table to a safe level results in a continuous source of water which can be used for irrigation or other domestic purposes. The presented procedure of discharge-recharge helps in conducting a control process of water balance in both the discharge areas. In the presented example, it is shown that a half or a full automatic control process is achieved such that the existing groundwater mound in the urbanized area is removed and a groundwater table with mild slope is reached and kept unchanged after a short period of time 2e+8s. The used model can be applied to any area that faces a similar problem as long as the collected water quantities can be of use with or without treatment in the neighborhood of the affected area.
REFERENCES

Fig. 5. Groundwatercontour lines.

1. Hauser,V. L. Groundwater rechargethrough wells. Proc. Int. Symp. Artificial Recharge of Groundwater, Anaheim, California, 1988.

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T. Youssef 4. Hunt, B. Mathematical Analysis of Groundwater Resources. University Press, Cambridge, 1983. 5. Mays, L. W. ed. Reliability Analysis of Water Distribution Systems.American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, 1989.

2. Levy, T. E. Groundwater basin management and artificial recharge. Proc. Int. Symp. ArtiJicial Recharge of Groundwater, Anaheim, California, 1988. 3. Pyne, R. D. Aquifer storage recovery ensuring water supply reliability for the Gulf Region. First Gurf Water Co&, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 1992.