Department of Earth Science |Northeastern Illinois University

PRINCIPLES OF HYDROGEOLOGY
ESCI 337
Spring, 2004

Daily Objectives #27 (April 27, 2004)                                             Dr. Sanders

By the end of today's class, you should be able to do the following:

n  Use a corollary to Darcy's Law to calculate velocity of ground water flow and travel times.

n  Complete Problem 3 at the end of Chapter 7 (parts a through d).

n  Construct a flow net for the "sand tank".
 
n  Predict how changes to these variables in the sand tank would affect flow:
             Increase/decrease the pumping rate out of the bottom of the tank. 
             Increase/decrease the rate of flow into the top of the tank.
             Change the lake level by causing it to be lower/higher.
             Use sand with a higher/lower hydraulic conductivity.           
             Use colder/hotter water.
             Put more sand in.
             Change the slope of the hillside.
             Make the lake larger by giving it a broader surface area.

n
 
Use Darcy's Law and your numerical ground water model to predict how changes in a ground water system will affect flow through the system.  Do this by altering variables one at a time, running the model, and then examining the results.  For each change (perturbation) to the system, record both how the results changed, and the degree of change (high, moderate, low). 

After you are done with each variable, reset it to its original value before changing the next variable.  Examine the effects of changes in the following variables: hydraulic conductivity, river levels (higher levels, like in a flood; lower levels, like in a drought; and lower slope of the river surface, like if a dam were built a short distance downstream), recharge rate, pumping rate, porosity, thickness of the aquifer.


Announcement: The NEIU community's online forum "Bughouse" has established a forum especially for Earth Science students!  I will use the forum to post news of job openings, class scheduling updates, and other news you can use.  But it's really your forum--you can post ideas, ask questions, and discuss issues of interest to you and other Earth Science students.  The forum will be as good and as interesting as the ESCI community makes it--so please participate!  You can get to bughouse.neiu.edu (notice there's no "www" in that address!) by clicking here.  Register to use it, and you're on your way!

Department of Earth Science | Northeastern Illinois University

© 2004 Laura L. Sanders.  Last updated April 24, 2004.