Basic Concepts of Ground Water

By
P.K.Parchure

Central Ground Water Board

Central Region
Nagpur
Basic Concepts of Ground Water
Contents
Basic Properties of Ground Water.........................................................1
Properties of Fluid (Water)....................................................................................1
Properties of Medium (Aquifer)..............................................................1
Hydraulic Conductivity or Permeability (K)........................................................1
Transmissivity (T or KD)........................................................................................2
Porosity (n)...............................................................................................................2
Specific Retention (Sr).............................................................................................3
Specific Yield (Sy)....................................................................................................3
Specific Storage (Ss)................................................................................................4
Storativity or Storage Coefficient (S).....................................................................4
Hydraulic Resistance (c).........................................................................................4
Leakage factor (L)...................................................................................................4
Diffusivity (KD/S)....................................................................................................5
Type and Nature of Aquifer....................................................................5
Aquifer, Aquitard and Aquifuge............................................................................5
Types of Aquifer.......................................................................................6
Confined Aquifer.....................................................................................................6
Leaky Aquifer..........................................................................................................6
Unconfined Aquifer.................................................................................................7
Fractured Media......................................................................................................7
Anisotropy and Heterogeneity...............................................................10

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Basic concepts
Basic Properties of Ground Water
Properties of Fluid (Water)
Density (ρ)
Unit: Kg/m3
Varies with temperature & Dissolved solid content
Viscosity
i. Kinematic (ν = µ/ρ)
Unit: m2 /s, stoke = 10-4 m2/s
ii. Dynamic (µ)
Unit: kg/m-s
For Water at 20°C and 1 atm pressure, the Dynamic viscosity is
1.002x10-3 kg/m-s. This is type of viscosity considered for the hydraulic
conductivity.
Temp. °C 0 4 5 10 15 20
Density (ρ) 999.868 1000.000 999.992 999.727 999.126 998.230
kg/m3
Kinematic 0.152 - 0.133 0.113 0.098 0.087
Viscosity
(ν) m3/day

Properties of Medium (Aquifer)

Hydraulic Conductivity or Permeability (K)
It is the capacity of a rock to transmit water and is the constant of
proportionality in Darcy's Law. It is defined as the volume of water that
will move in unit time under a unit hydraulic gradient through a unit area
measured at right angles to the direction of flow.
Theoretically the K is defined as:
kρ g
K=
µ
where ρ is fluid density (kg/m3), µ is the viscosity of fluid
(kg/md) or (kg/m-s) and g is the acceleration due to gravity (m/d2). The k
is the intrinsic permeability with unit of m2.
Unit of the Hydraulic Conductivity LT-1 usually expressed as m/day. The
Hydraulic Conductivity (K) varies from less than 10-8 to as much as 1000

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m/day. A range of the hydraulic conductivity for different geological
formations (after Bower 1978) is given below.
Geological Formation Hydraulic
Conductivity –
K (m/d)
Unconsolidated Formation
Clay 10-8 – 10-2
Fine sand 1–5
Medium sand 5 – 20
Coarse sand 20 – 100
Gravel 100 – 1000
Sand and gravel mixes 5 – 100
Clay, sand, gravel mixes (till) 10-3 – 10-1
Consolidated Formations
Sandstone 10-3 – 1
Carbonate rocks with secondary 10-2 – 1
porosity
Shale 10-7
Dense solid rock < 10-5
Fractured or weathered rock Almost 0 –
(core samples) 3x102
Volcanic rock Almost 0 – 103
Transmissivity (T or KD)
Tranmissivity is the rate at which water is transmitted through a unit
width of an aquifer under a unit hydraulic gradient. It equals the hydraulic
conductivity multiplied by the aquifer thickness.
T = KD
Unit of Transmissivity is L2T-1 (generally m2/day, cm2/sec, etc).

Porosity (n)
Porosity is defined as the ratio of volume of voids (Vv) to the total
volume of the material (Vt). The porosity ranges from almost 0 in case of
massive crystalline rocks to almost 70% in case of clays. Range of
porosity values of different geological formations is given below.
Geological Formation Porosity – n (%)
Clay 40 – 70
Silt 35 – 50
Sand 25 – 50
Gravel 25 – 40
Sandstone 5 – 30

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Geological Formation Porosity – n (%)
Limestone 0 – 20
Shale 0 – 10
Basalt (fractured) 5 – 50
Crystalline Rocks 0 – 10
Specific Retention (Sr)
The specific retention of a soil or rock is the ratio of the volume of water
it will retain after saturation against the force of gravity to its own
volume. Therefore it can be expressed as:
wr
Sr =
Vt
Specific Yield (Sy)
The specific yield of the a fully saturated soil or rock is the ratio of
volume of water that can be drained by the gravity to its own volume.
Thus specific yield can be expressed as
wy
Sy =
Vt
In case of an unconfined aquifer, the specific yield is the volume of water
that is released from storage per unit surface area of aquifer per unit
decline of the water table.
The values of specific yield generally range from 1 to 30%. Range of
Specific Yield for Different Geological Formations is given below.
Geological Formation Specific Yield – Sy
(%)
Clay 1 – 18
Fine sand 1 – 46
Medium to coarse sand 16 – 46
Gravel 13 – 44
Sandstone 13 – 41
Siltstone 1 – 33
Volcanic rock 2 – 47

From the above, it can be seen that the total volume of water in the
saturated media can be given as
Vv = wr + w y

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and the porosity of the medium can be given as:
N = Sr + S y

Specific Storage (Ss)

The specific storage of a saturated confined aquifer is the volume of
water that a unit volume of aquifer releases from storage under a unit
decline in hydraulic head. The specific storage is defined as:
S s = ρ g (α + nβ )
where α is compressibility of the porous medium value of which ranges
from 10-6 to 10-8 for clays, 10-7 to 10-9 for sands and from 10-8 to 10-10 for
fractured rocks, its unit is m2/N or Pa-1. β is the compressibility of water
and is usually taken as 4.4x10-10 m2/N (Pa-1).

Storativity or Storage Coefficient (S)

The storativity of a saturated confined aquifer of thickness D is is the
volume of water released from storage under per unit surface area of the
aquifer per unit decline in hydraulic head. The storativity is defined as:
S = SsD
The storativity is a ratio and thus does not have unit. Its value generally
range between 5.0x10-5 to 5.0x10-3.

Hydraulic Resistance (c)

The hydraulic Resistance is the resistance of an aquitard to vertical flow,
it has dimension of time and its unit is generally days:
D'
c=
K'
where K’ is Hydraulic conductivity of aqitard and D’ is its thickness.

Leakage factor (L)

The leakage factor is a measure for the spatial distribution of the leakage
through an aquitard in to leaky aquifer. It is defined as:
L= KDc
where c is Hydraulic resistance of confining layer, K is Hydraulic
conductivity of Leaky aquifer and D is its thickness.
Leakage factor has dimension of length and is generally expressed in m.

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Diffusivity (KD/S)
The hydraulic diffusivity is the ratio of the transmissivity and the
storativity of a saturated aquifer. It governs the propagation of changes in
hydraulic head in the aquifer. It has dimension of Length2/Time.

Type and Nature of Aquifer

Aquifer, Aquitard and Aquifuge
Aquifer
An aquifer is a geological unit that is saturated and permeable enough to
yield sufficient amount of water to wells. A geological unit can be
considered as an aquifer if:
a. it has sufficiently high permeability to maintain the flow of water
b. it is large enough with sufficient saturated thickness to be able to
supply water to a well, and
c. it has acceptable quality of water for intended use
The most common aquifers are unconsolidated sand and gravel, but
permeable sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone, and
heavily fractured or weathered volcanic and crystalline rocks can also be
classified as aquifers.

Aquitard
Aquitard is a geological unit of low permeability that can store
groundwater and also transmit it slowly from one aquifer to another. It
generally does not have sufficiently high permeability to sustain the
pumping well. Clays, loams and shales generally behave as aquitards.

Aquiclude
Aquiclude is an impermeable geological unit that does not transmit any
water at all. Highly compact igneous and metamorphic rocks as well as
compact sandstone and limestone behave as aquiclude. In nature,
however, the perfect aquiclude rarely occur. Therefore, the geological
units with very very low permeability are termed as aquiclude.

Aquifuge
The term Aquifuge is sometimes used synonymously with Aquiclude.
However, there is a minor difference that the Aquiclude may have some
water storage whereas Aquifuge may not.

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Types of Aquifer
There are three types of aquifers: Confined, Unconfined and Leaky. The
leaky aquifer is also sometimes called semi-confined aquifer.

Confined Aquifer
A confined aquifer is overlain and underlain by a confining layer
(aquiclude). The water in a confined aquifer is generally at a pressure
higher than that of atmosphere. Therefore, the water level or piezometric
head in confined aquifer is above the top of aquifer. Some times, the
water level may rise above the land surface. In that case the wells tapping
such aquifer are free flowing or artesian.

Leaky Aquifer
A leaky aquifer is generally underlain and overlain by an aquitard.
However, one of the boundaries can be an aquiclude. Sometimes the
upper aquitard is overlain by an unconfined layer. A typical sequence
from top to bottom may be - aquifer-aquitard-aquifer-aquiclude. The
water is able to move through the aquitard, though at a very low rate. The
water level in a leaky aquifer may coincide with that in upper unconfined
or another leaky aquifer in case of equilibrium. However, different
aquifer may have different water levels depending on the
recharge/discharge conditions.

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Unconfined Aquifer
The unconfined aquifer is underlain by aquiclude at the bottom but open
to atmosphere at top. The water in an unconfined aquifer is at
atmospheric pressure, therefore, the water level does not rise above the
top of aquifer. The water level in unconfined aquifer is generally called
water table. This type of aquifer is also known as water-table aquifer and
phreatic aquifer.

Fractured Media
Most of the ground water flow equations are basically valid for the
uniform isotropic porous media. This is not always the case. Major parts
of the country are underlain by the hard rock formations (Basalt, granite,
gneiss, compact sandstone, etc.).

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Ground water flow in such units is controlled by discontinuities in the
rock or sediment - cracks, bedding planes, breccia zones along faults, and
conduits formed by dissolution of the bedrock. The physics of
groundwater flow in these discontinuities is different from flow in a
porous media system. Often ground water flow in such formations is
controlled by small fractures. The term fractured-media refers to an
aquifer or formation that has fractures that are a significant part of the
flow system.

A: Single Porosity; B: Microfissures; C: Double Porosity

Source: Kruseman & de Ridder
Several theories or models have been developed to understand ground
water through fractured media. Some of these are:

Parallel Plate Model

A purely fractured system can be modeled with the assumptions that:
• all fluid flow is in the fractures, and
• the fractures can be represented as a series of parallel plates, i.e., the
fractures are all smooth-walled and have constant apertures.
The spacing and density of fractures in a volume of rock can be used to
formulate the mathematical representation called as the “cubic law”.
Theories have been developed to take into account the roughness and
variations in aperture.
This model has some limitations. It has an implicit assumption that the
fractures follow a constant spacing, or some sort of spacing that varies in
a predictable way. Also, it ignores flow in the matrix, which may or may
not be a correct assumption.

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Discrete Fracture Model
If the exact locations, extents, orientations, and hydraulic properties of all
the fractures in a system are known with some degree of confidence, then
the system can be simulated using a model that contains and calculates
flow in each fracture.
This is used frequently in the petroleum industry, when a reservoir has
been extensively studied (through drilling and geophysics) and the
locations of the major fractures are known with some certainty.
The obvious limitation with this is that, to get a meaningful model, one
needs to have lots of data. For many groundwater problems, this is not
feasible.

Stochastic Model
In stochastic models, the probability of occurrence of a fracture is input to
the model rather than actual orientations. These can be used where data is
sparse, and are most effective when it can be shown that the fractures
follow some sort of predictable distribution.

Double Porosity Model

This model is used in cases where the geological formation shows both
the primary and secondary porosity. Such models use a parallel-plate or
discrete fracture approach with a standard porous media model approach
to simulate flow in a double-porosity system.
A difficult part of these models is the relationship between the fractures
and the matrix blocks.
Recently few pumping test analysis programmes have been developed
using this model.

Equivalent Porous Model

The simplest way to model fractured system is to treat it as an equivalent
porous system. This is the approach often used because of paucity of data
and simplicity of mathematical system.
The idea is that, even though the system is fractured, the model contains a
representative elemental volume (REV) of the formation or aquifer. This
method works if the fractures are so numerous and well-connected that
the whole aquifer acts as an equivalent porous media, but it does not
work well if a few large fractures are controlling the flow system.
In the Indian context, this model is well suited in case of upper highly
weathered and fractured hard rock formations. Such system usually form

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the productive aquifers and usually behave in a manner similar to the
porous media.

Anisotropy and Heterogeneity

The basic assumption for most of the ground water flow equations is that
the aquifer is homogeneous and isotropic. This means that the hydraulic
conductivity or permeability is same in all the directions. This situation
rarely occurs in nature. The unconsolidated and sedimentary formations
may be stratified depending on the depositional conditions. In such cases,
the vertical hydraulic conductivity is generally much less than the
horizontal hydraulic conductivity. The ratio of Kxy/Kz may range from 2
to 10 and much higher if clay layers are present. The fractured medial
also may have different hydraulic properties in different directions.
The anisotropy is defined as “the parameter varies with respect to
direction”. The Heterogeneity is defined as “the parameter varies with
respect to location”
These two terms should not be used interchangeably. They mean two
different things.

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