Introduction

Aquifer testing can be conducted on hydraulic wells to determine hydraulic characteristics of an aquifer, as well as for predicting the drawdown of the piezometric surfaces within an aquifer resulting from the pumping of water from a well. There are a few different analytical solutions that can be used to predict the flow of water to a well or to determine the hydraulic characteristics of an aquifer. Each analytical solution is dependent on the conditions existing at the well during the time of testing (Schwartz and Zhang, 2003).

The objective of this example is to use SEEP/W to simulate the drawdown experienced within a confined aquifer to pumping of a well. The Theis solution will be used for predicting the drawdown of the piezometric surface resulting from pumping of water from a well in a horizontal confined aquifer. If the aquifer’s hydraulic properties are known, it is possible to predict the drawdown at any distance from the well at any time after the start of pumping. Comparing such a solution with a SEEP/W analysis makes it possible to verify the axisymmetric and transient features of the software.