Civil and Environmental Engineering Conference

1
Estimation of spatial permeability variability
for groundwater model input.

• Jürgen Schaeffer PhD Student (part time will I
  ever finish??)
• Supervisors Dr Sam Yuen
• Professor Tom McMahon

2
Overview

• Overview of Gippsland Basin
• Impact of Groundwater Extraction
• Development of Regional Groundwater Model and
  Hydrostratigraphic Data Base
• Correlation of Sand Content and Permeability
• Model Permeabilties
• Summary and Conclusions

3
Study Area
Lakes Entrance
Melbourne
Sale
Morwell
Approximate Extent of Gippsland Basin
4
History of Groundwater Extraction
5
Impacts of Groundwater Extraction

• Local and regional groundwater level decline

• Regional subsidence

6
Regional Groundwater Model and Database
Development

• Hydrostratigraphic Database
• SECV
• GDB
• Gedis
• Different Formats, Labelling, focus

• Regional Groundwater Model
• 18 Layers defined by regional aquifers and
  regional aquatards (Coal and Marls)
• Ability to predict sustainable groundwater
  extraction and regional subsidence
• Based on GROUNDWATER VISTAS package

7
Data Distribution
8
Sand Content T1Aquifer
9
Permeability / Sand Content Correlation
10
Permeability Sand Correlations
11
Estimated Permeability T1 Aquifer
12
Sand Content T1Aquifer
13
Estimated Permeability T1 Aquifer
14
T1 Aquifer Steady State
15
Summary and Conclusions

• Significant Bore Information exists throughout
  Gippsland Basin
• Limited Hydraulic data exists
• Estimates of sand content within defined
  Hydrostratigraphic layers can be estimated.
• Comparing sand content data with measured
  permeability data enables establishment of
  correlation equations.
• From correlation of sand content and permeability
  values, the spatial variability of permeability
  can be estimated
• These estimated permeability values provide
  better approximations of spatial permeability
  for groundwater model input

16
Thank you for your attention