Multimedia Gallery
Model of Groundwater Flow
Model of Groundwater Flow
A model of groundwater flow where yellow lines indicate direction of water flow, while red spheres represent heterogeneities that are present in most natural aquifer formations.
The link between model heterogeneities and actual formation heterogeneities is made in a statistical sense--although model and actual formations look quite different, they are statistically equivalent. The resulting flow is not uniform and results in hydrodynamic dispersion. The goal of the modeling effort was to establish a link between formations' heterogeneities and resulting dispersion using the idealized model.
With increasing population growth and reliance on groundwater sources for drinking water, the protection of groundwater supplies has become increasingly important. Computer models are frequently used to analyze regional groundwater flow patterns and assess the impacts of pumping and potential contamination sources. To capitalize on the recent explosion in computing power, SUNY at Buffalo researchers are developing the next generation of groundwater flow models. Implemented on massively parallel supercomputers, the models will be capable of representing the combined influence of millions of hydrologic features such as rivers, lakes, pumping wells, and contamination sources. [Research supported by National Science Foundation grant EAR 02-18914.] (Date of Image: April 2007)
Credit: Igor Jankovic, University of Buffalo; Eliot Winer, Iowa State University
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