See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/259216912

Stochastic analysis of the geological structure of groundwater aquifers

Conference Paper · January 2010

CITATIONS READS

5 49

2 authors, including:

Nicolaos Theodossiou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
113 PUBLICATIONS   724 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

14th Conference of the Hellenic Hydrotechnical Association (H.H.A) - 14ο Πανελλήνιο Συνέδριο της Ελληνικής Υδροτεχνικής Ένωσης (Ε.Υ.Ε.) View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Nicolaos Theodossiou on 21 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS OF THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF
GROUNDWATER AQUIFERS

M. Papapetrou1 and N. Theodossiou2

Division of Hydraulics and Environmental Engineering

Department of Civil Engineering
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
541 24 Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: mpapapet@civil.auth.gr1 , niktheod@civil.auth.gr2

ABSTRACT

One of the most important aspects for the successful application of rational groundwater
resources management practices is the accuracy of the respective simulation models. The main
problems though regarding aquifer simulation is the fact that it is based on a significant level
upon parameters generally characterised as uncertain. In this paper an application of a
stochastic approach regarding the geological structure of aquifers is presented. The under study
aquifer is located in the water basin of the municipality of Moudania in the Chalkidiki
peninsula in northern Greece, an area, where according to the lithological structure of the
boreholes, shows intense horizontal and vertical material heterogeneity. The entire process, to
determine the extent of the aquifer was achieved through the application of the T-Progs model,
a module included in the software Groundwater Modelling System (GMS) based on the well
known ModFlow code.

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA

The municipality of Moudania is located in the western part of the prefecture of Chalkidiki, a
peninsula with a distinct shape in northern Greece. Geomorphologicaly it can be separated in
two different parts as a result of the tectonic activity, the mountain central and eastern area
section with steep topography and the low hilly topography western area, which is mainly flat
extent.

The under study basin, with an area size of 127 km2 [8, 9], is located in the western area. The
prevalent form of hydrographical network is parallel and straight watercourses in the southern
part of the basin and watercourses with a dendritic structure in the northern part (Figure 1).

In the research region the formation of Moudania [4, 7, 10, 12, 14] dominates, the red clays,
that cover most of the area and form a smooth surface. The formation of Moudania, includes a
large volume of terra rosa, constituted by alternations of gravel, sandstone, pebbles and sandy-
silty clay. The coarse material extents within the clay lens with variable thickness. In some
parts there is great diversity in the structure of the material, which is probably due to different
deposition phases.

According to the prevailing conditions, the formations can be divided in two main categories:
those with good ground water capacity such as sandstones, gravels, pebbles, and those that are
practically considered as rocks with no ground water capacity such as schistose and gneisses.

1
According to the lithological structure of the boreholes [8, 9], the under study area shows
intense horizontal and vertical material heterogeneity as shown in a representative section of a
typical borehole presented in figure 1.

Figure 1: The study area of the municipality of Moudania water basin in northern Greece

2
2. STOCHASTIC PROBLEM FORMULATION AND DATA PROCESSING

The stochastic simulation was performed using the T-Progs module [13], a software package
that performs transition probability geostatistics to generate multiple equally probable models
of aquifer heterogeneity, all of which can be conditioned to borehole data. T-Progs is generally
used in a stochastic modelling approach with the ModFlow 2000 model [2, 5]. Both ModFlow
2000 and T-Progs are included in the Groundwater Modelling System GMS software [1, 6].

The first step in using T-Progs is to import a set of borehole data. A limitation imposed by the
software is that the maximum number of soil materials that can be used is set to five. This
limitation was imposed to keep data processing at a reasonable level. This is actually not a very
strict limitation since real borehole data can easily be described using five soil materials (figure
2). Furthermore since this is a stochastic approach, which is based on probability, the detail
generated with numerous materials is rarely justifiable.

Totally fourteen geological formations were recorded from the thirty boreholes, most of them
presenting only small variations. These formations have been grouped into four categories,
based in the granulometry and their hydraulic conductivity:
• Gravel containing pebbles and conglomerate.
• Sandy gravel containing sand and sandstone.
• Clay, the most extensive one, containing marlstone, marl, clayey silt and clayey marl.
• Clay with gravel containing pebbles with clay and clayey sand.

Figure 2: Borehole cross-section distribution in oblique view

3. DEFINING THE MARKOV CHAINS

The T-PROGS software utilizes a transition probability-based geostatistical approach to model

spatial variability by 3D Markov Chains [3, 11], set up indicator cokriging equations, and
formulate the objective function for simulated annealing. The borehole data within algorithm
GAMEAS, computes a set of transition probability curves as a function of lag distance for each
category for a given sampling interval. The produced plots contain two curves depicting the
transition probability. The dashed line represents the transition probability measured from the
borehole data by the GAMEAS utility. This curve represents the transition probability from one

3
material to the other material. The curve with the solid line represents the Markov Chain
approach. The Markov Chains are used to formulate the equations used by T-Progs to generate
the multiple material sets during the simulation stage. The objective of this stage of the analysis
is to fit the Markov Chain curves as accurately as possible to the measured transition
probability curves. Once the Markov chains are developed for the z direction from the borehole
data, a model of spatial variability must be developed for the x and y directions. Borehole data
are typically not sufficiently dense in these directions. However, the x and y-direction Markov
chains can be developed by assuming that the juxtapositional tendencies and the proportions
observed in the vertical direction also hold true in the horizontal directions. Figure 3 shows the
transition probability adaptation between the first material set and all four material sets, using
the “edit embedded transition probabilities” method. There is a very good matching of the two
curves in all four diagrams which indicates that the data are homogeneous.

Figure 3: Markov Chain and measured data curves using the “edit embedded transition
probabilities” method

4
There are five alternate methods available in T-Progs for generating these Markov chains. The
“edit embedded transition probabilities” method is a more intuitive method and is conducive to
sites with and without data. It is conducive to sites with data because the embedded transition
probabilities can be determined from the borehole data. If borehole data do not exist, the
embedded transition probabilities can be estimated with some basic geologic knowledge
including the average mean lengths of each material for each direction and depositional trends.
The self-transitional curves on the diagonal start at a probability of 1.0 and decrease with
distance and the off-diagonal curves start at zero probability and increase with distance. In both
cases, the curves eventually flatten out at some distance. The probability corresponding to the
flat part of the curve represents the mean proportion of the material. The point where a tangent
line from the early part of the curves on the diagonal intersects the horizontal (lag distance)
axis on each curve represents the mean lens length for the material (figure 3). The values in
Table 1 constitute the embedded transition probabilities for each pair of geological materials.
The highest values of transition are presented in the pairs of same materials, especially in pair
clay with gravel with a value of 15.816. On the other hand, the transition of one material to
another, always shows lower values as gravelÆsand with gravel, with a value of 0.074.
Notable are the different values that two pairs of same materials have. The pair clayÆgravel
has the value of 0.506 but the pair gravelÆclay has the value of 0.805. Since 0.805>0.506 one
can conclude that it is less likely to make the transition from the clay to gravel, compared with
the transition from gravel to clay at z direction. This is clearly represented by the curves of
figure 3 (3rd-5th plot).

Material Clay Clay with gravel Gravel Sand with gravel

Clay 11.513 0.267 0.506 0.226
Clay with gravel 0.598 15.816 0.312 0.089
Gravel 0.805 0.119 11.880 0.074
Sand with gravel 0.705 0.126 0.168 9.208

Table 1: Embedded transition probabilities

The values of lens length from Table 2 coincide with the diagonal terms of Table 1. These
values represent the mean lens lengths from each material and clay with gravel material takes
the biggest value 15.816. The background material can be described as the material that «fills»
in the remaining areas not occupied by other units. In this scenario the most repeated material
which is clay was chosen as background material and in comparison with the values of Table 2,
takes the greatest proportion of 0.4026.

Material Proportion Lens Length

Clay 0.4026 11.513
Clay with gravel 0.2145 15.816
Gravel 0.2825 11.880
Sand with gravel 0.1004 9.208

Table 2: Material proportions and lens length

4. DEFINING THE AQUIFERS BOUNDARIES

As derived by the geological cross-sections, the boundaries of the water basin coincide with the
boundaries of the aquifer, because the displayed formations appear to have good ground water
capacity. The contours, produced by a 2D scatter points group determine the level of each layer

5
(Figure 4). Each cell in the grid is described by its coordinates in the directions x, y and z and
the layer where it is located and it is assigned a material id. The rotation angle of the 3D grid is
considered to be 0o because the direction of the water basin is North-South. The second picture
of Figure 5 shows in plan view one of the five stochastic simulations in which 89.063 data are
developed.

Figure 4: Aquifers boundaries with yellow arc and sample material set distribution generated
by T-PROGS

Using the output material sets from T-Progs, probability data sets for each material can be
created. This procedure produced four different formulations, with the grid having a graduation
of colours, from blue to red, corresponding to the probability occurrence of each formation in
each cell in the grid, the blue being the less probable to occur.
¾ The blue colour mostly dominates the grid of clay-gravel and sand-gravel materials. The
blue, as shown in the index, corresponds to value between 0.2667-0.0667, indicating that in the
blue cells, the probability of occurrence of clay-gravel and sand-gravel ranges from 2.667% to
0.667%. In cells that yellow to red colour dominate, the occurrence of clay-gravel and sand-
gravel varies between 80% -100%, which indicates the certainly of occurrence of these
materials.
¾ For the materials of clay and gravel, the colour that dominates the grid is green. The green,
as shown in the index, corresponds to values between 0.4667-0.5333, indicating that in the
green cells, the probability of occurrence of clay and gravel ranges from 46.67% to 53.33%.
Several parts of the clay grid are red indicating the certainty while their probability of
occurrence ranges from 86% to 100%. As far as the rest of the materials are concerned there
are only a few red-orange cells, five-three-one, indicating the certainty in occurrence of clay-
gravel, gravel and sand-gravel respectively.

6
Figure 6: Probability distribution of the soil material structure for Layer 1 in plan view

7
 5. CONCLUSIONS - DISCUSSION

The T-Progs software is used to perform transition probability geostatistics based on borehole
data. The output of the T-Progs is a set of five material sets on a 3D grid, each of which
represents a different realization of the aquifer heterogeneity with equal probability of
occurrence. Clay material has the predominant occurrence in the boreholes (greatest
proportion) and is marked as the background material. Conceptually, the background material
can be described as the material that “fills” in the remaining areas not occupied by other units.
The greatest values of embedded transition probabilities, which coincide with the terms of lens
length, appear in the same material pairs whereas smaller values appear in different material
pairs. The self-transitional curves start on the diagonal at a probability of 1.0 and decrease with
distance and the off-diagonal curves start at zero probability and increase with distance. In both
cases, the curves eventually flatten out at some distance. Probability data sets for each material
can be created and displayed using this approach. Red colour represents the certainty for a
material to appear in a specific grid cell. On the other hand, the blue colour represents the
respective minimum probability of appearance which is equal to the maximum probability of
non-appearance of the certain material in a specific cell. In order to reduce the negative
environmental impacts on water resources and apply effective measures for the protection and
restoration of quality or quantity degraded groundwater systems one must take into
consideration the stochastic structure of basic aquifer characteristics such as the distribution of
geologic formations and their hydraulic conductivity.

6. REFERENCES

1. Groundwater Modelling System (2008), GMS 6.5 Software.

2. Harbaugh, A.W., Banta, E.R., Hill, M.C., and McDonald, M.G. (2000) MODFLOW-2000, the
U.S. Geological Survey modular ground-water model -- User guide to modularization concepts
and the Ground-Water Flow Process: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 00-92, 121 p.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain
4. http://users.auth.gr/~labrinos/www.eled.auth.gr/geography/xalkidiki.htm
5. http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/gwsoftware/modflow2000/modflow2000.html
6. http://www.ems-i.com/GMS/gms.html
7. Kavvadas M. (2005) "Physical Characteristics of Soils" Soil mechanics elements, 2nd Chapter,
Edition National Technical University of Athens.
8. Latinopoulos P. (2002) Development of water resources management plan for water supply
and irrigation for the municipality of Moudania - Research Project, Department of Civil
Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki.
9. Latinopoulos P., N. Theodossiou, A. Papageorgiou, A Xefteris and Z. Mallios (2003)
"Investigation of water resources in the water basin of the municipality Moudania Chalkidiki",
9th Panhellenic Greek Hydrotechnical Union.
10. Meladiotis J. (2003) "Engineering Geology II", Notes, Thessaloniki.
11. Papapetrou M. (2009) “Stochastical investigation of the geological structure of a groundwater
aquifer”, master’s thesis, postgraduate programe Protection of the environment and sustainable
development, Dept of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
12. Soulios, G.Ch. (1986) "General Hydrogeology" Publications University Studio Press,
Thessaloniki.
13. Steven F.C. (1999) "T-PROGS: Transition Probability Geostatistical Software", Version 2.1,
University of California, Davis.
14. Xefteris, A. (2000) "Investigation of groundwater resources quality degradation in the basin of
Kalamaria with emphasis on nitrate pollution", Ph.D. thesis, Department of Civil Engineering,
Thessaloniki.

View publication stats