Evapotranspiration is the mixed process of soil evaporation and transpiration of plants. This process is not included in many Hydrology books or in hydrological methods like the rational method, SCS, among others. Evapotranspiration is not relevant in when calculating maximum floods, but it is considered in water balances of superficial water and groundwater.

This article shows the relevance of the evapotranspiration process in the conceptualization and modeling of groundwater, indicating which would be the errors and inaccuracies of not considering this process.

A hydrogeological evaluation needs a numerical representation of the groundwater flow regime. Numerical models are a great tool to evaluate the current and future conditions of groundwater flow. In order to make a model, it is necessary to have geological and climate data, among other types.

The following list describes the input data needed to carry out a hydrogeological modeling. The information required could be either in tabular or vectorial format.

Impact on groundwater flow from mining facilities could be evaluated many times along the different mining phases, many of these evaluations are done by different consultant companies. This post is focused on strategies and best practices for cost (& time) optimization, specially for hydrogeological investigation on mining projects. 

In the actual society, the environmental aspects are a concern when planning projects related to water resources. In this context, numerical models are useful tools to represent the superficial water and groundwater cycle and determine the contamination effects.

Current and historical mining activities have a seepage and waste-dumps legacy that are the concern for mining companies, population and regulatory authorities.

Old waste-dumps have not been regulated and most of the old tailings have been deposited in soils without covering. Tailing deposits and waste-dumps should be analyzed in a particular way because of the ground, instalation details, mineralized body geology, mined type, weather and other parameters.

Recent mining activities count with major engineering in waste-dumps and tailing deposit instalations, as well as better monitoring evaluation seepage. However, there is still a seepage risk coming from old and new waste-dumps and their transport constituties a potential environmental issue.

Hi Saul, I am Giuseppe and I watched your lessons on ModelMuse on YouTube. I’m trying to learn how to use that software, maybe you can help me if you have time.

Once again I had a crush with the question whether Feflow or Modflow. I think this question is related to how bad are we selling environmental services and environmental software.

It is a matter of faith

Calibration of groundwater flow models in mining

When I was in second semester of my master degree, the course director gave me this advice: “Learn MODFLOW and you will have a job”. That was a small and sincere advice that helped me on the last eight years as hydrogeologist – numerical modeler. Nowadays, I want to give the guidelines for people interested in how to be a senior hydrogeologist in 6 years.

Since an homogenous aquifer was modelled, there is an interest in comparing the results with an analytical solution. Some formulas give the drawdown value into the well for a steady flow in confined and unconfined aquifers that are homogeneous, isotropic and infinite in the horizontal extent with a single full penetrating well.

MODFLOW is a software for groundwater modeling developed by the USGS. The software is capable of representing conditions related to groundwater flow such as evapotranspiration, recharge, drainage, river interaction among others. Its finite different approach gives the capability to calculate the flow regime with exceptional control on water budget discrepancy. With MODFLOW one can rely on that the flow going in the model is the same as the flow going out of it, from the regional scale and on cross sections.