The estimation of the spatial variability of the flow parameters using hydraulic tomography

Pumping tests are often used for the estimation of flow parameters. However, the interpretation of these tests is routinely performed using conventional methods that assume the parameters are uniform which is in contradiction with most real systems. The main objective of this thesis is to combine a recently developed pumping test interpretation technique, referred to as the Continuous Derivation method, with data obtained from hydraulic tomography. Hydraulic tomography is a novel field data acquisition technique that involves the sequential pumping from a number of wells and observing the groundwater drawdown in adjacent wells as a function of time. Particularly, the goal was to extend the method to the estimation of the statistical spatial structure of the transmissivity using hydraulic tomography data. In geostatistics, the statistical spatial structure of a parameter refers to the pattern of how this parameter varies in space. The emphasis was on estimating how the transmissivity varies with distance from the pumping well and then use that information to estimate the statistical parameters, namely the integral scale and variance.