Desert Research Institute, Nevada System of Higher Education, 755 E Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89119, USA.
Ground Water. 2010 May-Jun;48(3):442-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2009.00664.x. Epub 2010 Jan 20.
An integral approach is proposed to quantify uncertainty and sensitivity of advective travel time to the effective porosities of hydrogeologic units (HGUs) along groundwater flow paths. The approach is applicable in situations where a groundwater flow model exists, but a full solute transport model is not available. The approach can be used to: (1) determine HGUs whose porosities are influential to the solute advective travel time; and (2) apportion uncertainties of solute advective travel times to the uncertainty contributions from individual HGU porosities. A simple one-dimensional steady-state flow example is used to illustrate the approach. Advective travel times of solutes are obtained based on the one-dimensional steady-state flow results in conjunction with the HGU porosities. The approach can be easily applicable to more complex multi-dimensional cases where advective solute travel time can be calculated based on simulated flow results from groundwater flow models. This approach is particularly valuable for optimizing limited resources when designing field characterization programs for uncertainty reduction by identifying HGUs that contribute most to the estimation uncertainty of advective travel times of solutes.
提出了一种整体方法来量化地下水流动路径中水力地质单元（HGU）有效孔隙率对平流旅行时间的不确定性和敏感性。该方法适用于存在地下水流动模型但无法获得完整溶质传输模型的情况。该方法可用于：（1）确定对溶质平流旅行时间有影响的 HGU；（2）将溶质平流旅行时间的不确定性分配给各个 HGU 孔隙率的不确定性贡献。使用简单的一维稳态流动示例来说明该方法。根据一维稳态流动结果以及 HGU 孔隙率来获得溶质的平流旅行时间。该方法可以很容易地应用于更复杂的多维情况，在这些情况下，可以根据地下水流动模型的模拟流动结果来计算平流溶质旅行时间。当通过识别对溶质平流旅行时间估计不确定性贡献最大的 HGU 来设计用于减少不确定性的现场特征描述计划以优化有限资源时，该方法特别有价值。
