Α1.2 Hydrogeology and Groundwater Modelling
This course studies the topics of groundwater hydrology and the analysis of hydrogeological systems that form the basis for the sustainable management of groundwater resources. It investigates the quantitative impacts of anthropogenic activities on aquifer systems and the available technologies for optimized exploitation of their resources. Additionally, this course focuses on the modeling of groundwater flow with different methods for the simulation of different hydro-environmental problems. The course is composed of the following sections:
- Hydrogeological systems and types of aquifer formations. Groundwater hydrology and hydraulics.
- Karstic hydrogeology: formation of karstic hydrogeologic systems, karst morphology and hydrology, karstic springs and submarine groundwater discharge, simulation of groundwater flow in karstic aquifers.
- Groundwater overexploitation and environmental impacts. Urban hydrogeology. Groundwater lowering in construction.
- Managed Aquifer Recharge – MAR: Available technologies and methodologies; monitoring technologies; method and site selection in MAR systems. Legislative framework and economics.
- Science and technology of geothermal fields: high and low enthalpy systems, subsurface investigation of geothermal fields, shallow geothermal systems, modeling of groundwater flow and heat transport in shallow geothermal systems.
- Groundwater wells technology: Design of wells for groundwater lowering; constructing deep wells; drilling of well boreholes; installation of well materials; well development; installation and operation of deep well pumps; shallow well installations. Analysis and interpretation of pumping tests.
- Groundwater modeling: Analytical flow models; numerical flow models; finite difference method, finite elements methods. Development of conceptual hydrogeologic model, hydraulic boundary conditions, sensitivity analysis, model calibration and parametrization.
- Large computational exercise using MODFLOW-2005 (USGS): Development of conceptual model of a case study, model setup (spatial/temporal dicretization, boundary conditions and available packages), groundwater flow simulation under different scenarios involving MAR applications, sensitivity analysis using UCODE_2014 (USGS).