Review: Hydraulic head measurements - New technologies, classic pitfalls

Review: Hydraulic head measurements - New technologies, classic pitfalls

Post, E.A.P.
Von Asmuth, J.R.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Water Management

2013-04-07

The hydraulic head is one of the most important metrics in hydrogeology as it underlies the interpretation of groundwater flow, the quantification of aquifer properties and the calibration of flow models. Heads are determined based on water-level measurements in wells and piezometers. Despite the importance of hydraulic head data, standard textbooks used in groundwater curricula provide relatively little discussion of the appropriate measurement procedures. This paper presents a review of the literature dealing with the determination of hydraulic heads, and aims to provide quantitative guidance on the likely sources of error and when these can be expected to become important. The most common measurement procedures are discussed and the main sources of error are identified, i.e. those related to (1) the measurement instruments, (2) the conversion from pressure to heads, (3) time lag effects, and (4) observation well defects. It is argued that heads should be determined following welldefined guidelines, and that it should become standard practice in hydrogeology to provide quantitative estimates of the measurement error.

review
equipment/field techniques
general hydrogeology
groundwater monitoring
foundations (pedagogy)

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:518b3f31-dc58-4091-b977-a3077f9133b7

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-013-0969-0

Springer

2014-04-07

1431-2174

Hydrogeology Journal 21(4), 737-750. (2013)

Institutional Repository

journal article

(c) Post, E.A.P.
Von Asmuth, J.R.