Estimating Field-Scale Hydraulic Parameters of Heterogeneous Soils Using a Combination of Parameter Scaling and Inverse Methods

摘要

As the Hanford Site transitions into remediation of contaminated soil waste sites and tank farm closure, more information is needed about the transport of contaminants as they move through the vadose zone to the underlying water table. The hydraulic properties must be characterized for accurate simulation of flow and transport. This characterization includes the determination of soil texture types, their three-dimensional distribution, and the parameterization of each soil texture. This document describes a method to estimate the soil hydraulic parameter using the parameter scaling concept (Zhang et al. 2002) and inverse techniques. To this end, the Groundwater Protection Program Science and Technology Project funded vadose zone transport field studies, including an analysis of the results to estimate field-scale hydraulic parameters for modeling. Parameter scaling is a new method to scale hydraulic parameters. The method relates the hydraulic parameter values measured at different spatial scales for different soil textures. Parameter scaling factors relevant to a reference texture are determined using these local-scale parameter values, e.g., those measured in the lab using small soil cores. After parameter scaling is applied, the total number of unknown variables in hydraulic parameters is reduced by a factor equal to the number of soil textures. The field-scale values of the unknown variables can then be estimated using inverse techniques and a well-designed field experiment. Finally, parameters for individual textures are obtained through inverse scaling of the reference values using an a priori relationship between reference parameter values and the specific values for each texture.