Fully Coupled Hydrogeophysical Inversion of Salt-Tracer Experiments

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Estimating hydraulic conductivity in heterogeneous aquifers remains a challenge of groundwater hydraulics. The propagation of salt plumes, introduced during controlled-release experiments, can be monitored by time-lapse electrical-resistivity tomography (ERT) using multiple combinations of current and potential electrodes. So far, the analysis of these ERT data has been cumbersome, because the inversion produces concentration images that still need to be interpreted in a hydraulic context. In a preceding project, we have developed a fully coupled hydrogeophysical inversion method for ERT data obtained during salt-tracer tests. The time series of electrical signals are characterized by their temporal moments. Temporal moment-generating equations allow approximating the mean breakthrough time of the electrical signal from flow and concentrationmoment equations without solving transient equations. These equations have been integrated into a geostatistical inversion method to infer the hydraulic-conductivity distribution from ERT data. The method has been applied to artificially generated test cases. Within the proposed one-year extension project, we will perform several series of salt-tracer tests in a quasi two-dimensional sandbox with increasingly complex fillings, monitor the experiments by time-lapse ERT, and invert their temporal moments with the fully coupled hydrogeophysical inversion method. We will simulate the transient concentration distributions with the inferred hydraulic conductivity fields and compare them to images taken during the experiments.