Analytical studies on transient groundwater flow induced by land reclamation using different fill materials

Abstract

Land reclamation may have a significant influence on groundwater regimes. Analytical solutions have been developed in the past to study the impact of land reclamation on a steady‐state groundwater flow and transient flow in fill materials, assuming that the reclamation site consists of a single zone of uniform hydraulic parameters. In this paper, we derive analytical solutions to describe the transient water table change in response to multi‐stage land reclamation where the fill material is uniform in each stage but the hydraulic conductivity of the fill material varies from stage to stage. By introducing the method of separation of variables, we develop a transient analytical solution to study the impact of land reclamation consisting of fill material with different hydraulic properties on groundwater dynamics. The results show that the water table first increases significantly into the reclaimed zone following the fill material deposition, and then the increase gradually propagates into the original aquifer. The change of water table in the original aquifer mainly depends on the value of hydraulic conductivity of the fill materials. Examples in this paper illustrate how the aquifer system experiences a long time unsteady‐state flow as a result of the reclamation, and it takes at least tens of years for the system to approach a new equilibrium. It is suggested that for a large‐scale reclamation project, the response of the groundwater regime to reclamation should be carefully studied. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.