Learning objectives
The course provides the tools needed for the analysis of groundwater circulation in order to evaluate criteria for research, exploitation and protection of groundwater resources.
Prerequisites
<p>Flow through saturated porous media: natural aquifers, hydraulic head, Darcy's Law, hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity, storativity, isotropic and anisotropic media, specific discharge, effective velocity.</p>
<p>Mass conservation, flow equations in confined and unconfined aquifers, steady state and transient flow.</p>
<p>Flow net: reconstruction and analysis of piezometric surface, groundwater discharge, surface water-groundwater interactions.</p>
<p>Groundwater exploitation: drilling and installation of wells and piezometers, casing, well screens, pumping wells' protection zones.</p>
<p>Pumping wells: analitical solutions for flow and analysis of pumping tests.</p>
<p>Principles of geostatistics: basic concepts, regionalized variables, spatial variability, interpolation methods. Estimation of the spatial distribution of hydrogeological variables (by use of geostatistical codes).</p>
<p>Groundwater contamination: solute transport in saturated media, advection-dispersion equation, tracer tests at laboratory and field scale.</p>
<p>Mathematical modelling: solutions of flow and transport problems by numerical methods using typical software.</p>
<p>Fractured aquifers: methodology of analysis, springs.</p>
<p>Hydrologic budget: measurements of the components of a hydrologic budget, groundwater resources evaluation, sustainable use of groundwater resources. </p>
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Bibliography
Celico P. (1986) “Prospezioni idrogeologiche”. Vol 1 e 2, Liguori Editore, Napoli. <br />
Freeze R.A., Cherry J.A. (1979) “Groundwater”. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. <br />
Bear J. (1979) “Hydraulics of groundwater”. Mc Graw-Hill, New York. <br />
Fetter C.W. (1992) “Contaminant Hydrogeology” . Mc Millan, New York. <br />
Teaching methods
Oral lessons and practical exercises (use of numerical codes).
