Improved characterization of heterogeneous permeability in saline aquifers from transient pressure data during freshwater injection

Kang, Peter K.; Lee, Jonghyun; Fu, Xiaojing; Lee, Seunghak; Kitanidis, Peter K.; Juanes, Ruben

doi:10.1002/2016WR020089

Title: Improved characterization of heterogeneous permeability in saline aquifers from transient pressure data during freshwater injection

Journal Article · Wed May 31 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Water Resources Research

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016WR020089· OSTI ID:1423942

Kang, Peter K. ^[1]; Lee, Jonghyun ^[2]; Fu, Xiaojing ^[3];

^[4]; Kitanidis, Peter K. ^[2];

^[5]

Korea Inst. of Science and Technology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Korea Inst. of Science and Technology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science

Abstract Managing recharge of freshwater into saline aquifers requires accurate estimation of the heterogeneous permeability field for maximizing injection and recovery efficiency. Here we present a methodology for subsurface characterization in saline aquifers that takes advantage of the density difference between the injected freshwater and the ambient saline groundwater. We combine high‐resolution forward modeling of density‐driven flow with an efficient Bayesian geostatistical inversion algorithm. In the presence of a density difference between the injected and ambient fluids due to differences in salinity, the pressure field is coupled to the spatial distribution of salinity. This coupling renders the pressure field transient: the time evolution of the salinity distribution controls the density distribution which then leads to a time‐evolving pressure distribution. We exploit this coupling between pressure and salinity to obtain an improved characterization of the permeability field without multiple pumping tests or additional salinity measurements. We show that the inversion performance improves with an increase in the mixed convection ratio—the relative importance between viscous forces from injection and buoyancy forces from density difference. Our work shows that measuring transient pressure data at multiple sampling points during freshwater injection into saline aquifers can be an effective strategy for aquifer characterization, key to the successful management of aquifer recharge.

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Research Organization:: Korea Inst. of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI)

Grant/Contract Number:: sc0009286; 16AWMP-B066761–04; 2E27030; NSF EEC-1028968; DE‐SC0009286

OSTI ID:: 1423942

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1402337

Journal Information:: Water Resources Research, Vol. 53, Issue 5; ISSN 0043-1397

Publisher:: American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 24 works

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