3-DIMENSIONAL STEADY GROUNDWATER-FLOW AND ADVECTIVE TRANSPORT BY INTEGRAL-TRANSFORMS

A quasi-analytical technique for the solution of governing equations o f steady groundwater flow and advective transport in aquifers is inves tigated. This technique is based on integral transforms and does not r equire any spatial discretization of the solution domain. It produces a continuous and differentiable solution to the groundwater flow equat ion, thus making it possible to obtain conveniently a continuous veloc ity field in three-dimensional (3-D) physical domains without any spat ial discretization. This velocity field, in conjunction with a method of characteristics particle tracking scheme is used to solve the advec tion component of the transport equation. A 3-D transport model based on this technique was developed and analyzed for effectiveness as a mo deling tool. The model was used to study the effect of complex 3-D flo w on 2-D apparent macrodispersion.