A Comparison of Genetic Algorithm and Trial-and-error Approach in Solving the Hydrogeologic Inverse Problem

摘要

The inverse problem of hydrogeology is of characteristics of complexity and nonuniqueness such that the trial-and-error approach is commonly used to solve the problem. Genetic algorithm (GA), a global random search technique, can be also utilized in this problem. In this study, GA was coupled with finite element method (FEM) to identify hydrogeologic parameters in a hypothetical application. Moreover, the trial-and-error method is applied to the same hypothetical example. A comparison of the results of the two approaches shows that in the case of few parameters, GA and trial-and-error method both can solve the problem satisfying; but when the number of parameters increases, GA has more advantages over trial-and-error method in accuracy and efficiency. Reducing the search ranges of parameters in GA will improve the result of identification.