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In a confined aquifer, the saturated thickness is determined by the height of the aquifer, H, and the pressure head is non-zero everywhere. In an unconfined aquifer , the saturated thickness is defined as the vertical distance between the water table surface and the aquifer base.
For a confined aquifer or aquitard, storativity is the vertically integrated specific storage value. Specific storage is the volume of water released from one unit volume of the aquifer under one unit decline in head. This is related to both the compressibility of the aquifer and the compressibility of the water itself.
[1] [2] In an unconfined aquifer (water table), this is an actual depression of the water levels. In confined aquifers , the cone of depression is a reduction in the pressure head surrounding the pumped well. When a well is pumped, the water level in the well is lowered.
An unconfined aquifer has no impermeable barrier immediately above it, such that the water level can rise in response to recharge. A confined aquifer has an overlying impermeable barrier that prevents the water level in the aquifer from rising any higher. An aquifer in the same geologic unit may be confined in one area and unconfined in another.
Most commonly an aquifer test is conducted by pumping water from one well at a steady rate and for at least one day, while carefully measuring the water levels in the monitoring wells. When water is pumped from the pumping well the pressure in the aquifer that feeds that well declines.
The fraction of water held back in the aquifer is known as specific retention. Thus it can be said that porosity is the sum of specific yield and specific retention. Specific yield of soils differ from each other in the sense that some soil types have strong molecular attraction with the water held in their pores while others have less.
For groundwater "potentiometric surface" is a synonym of "piezometric surface" which is an imaginary surface that defines the level to which water in a confined aquifer would rise were it completely pierced with wells. [1] If the potentiometric surface lies above the ground surface, a flowing artesian well results.
The Earth sciences use compressibility to quantify the ability of a soil or rock to reduce in volume under applied pressure. This concept is important for specific storage, when estimating groundwater reserves in confined aquifers. Geologic materials are made up of two portions: solids and voids (or same as porosity). The void space can be full ...