Sensibilities
Lastly, we may investigate the mutually reinforcing sensitivities with respect to the influence that each distinct parameter modification has on the simulated observation data.
Thus, it becomes feasible to emphasise the crucial role that this type of information can play to the modelling assumptions. This chart shows the gap between what was theoretically proposed as a numerical structure and what is actually possible to do mathematically .
And ultimately, it can also be claimed that this information has the ability to serve as a guide for new fieldworks, particularly to dispel some persistence doubts about the modelled results and inconsistencies.
Here comes the negligible error for the mass balance.
Final results and discussions
The goals of this case were accomplished by numerical model.
From the modelled supported evidences, the flow is not perpendicular to the topography (next to the [X] region). Because the cells dries above the water line.
The thing is, it seems that the water flows around the hill (perhaps aided by some pressure transference via communicating vessels through the rocky fractures), a situation which allows the spring to surge in an apparently higher up position.
Therefore, it would be more prudent to reject, at least in part, the hypothesis of the main flow by fractured medium through the hill. Being better to associate it with the regolith, and/or the more recent sedimentary thin layers.
Corroborates these assumptions, the observed fact that the greater the hydraulic conductivity allocated to the surface materials (1,2,3), the lower the sensitivity of these parameters along with the suggested results.
The proposed methodology also achieved its goals.
From the modelled supported evidences, the flow is not perpendicular to the topography (next to the [X] region). Because the cells dries above the water line.
The thing is, it seems that the water flows around the hill (perhaps aided by some pressure transference via communicating vessels through the rocky fractures), a situation which allows the spring to surge in an apparently higher up position.
Therefore, it would be more prudent to reject, at least in part, the hypothesis of the main flow by fractured medium through the hill. Being better to associate it with the regolith, and/or the more recent sedimentary thin layers.
And a last comment on the Betami method.
The visual appeal of the present algorithm (currently in MS Excel), has the benefit of aiding the management of the frequently abundant and constantly growing volume of data.
The method also proved to be quite effective in speeding up not the calibration process per si, but thinking more profoundly, by facilitating the instrumentalization of any new structural needed modification, to adapt all the solutions demands. And in its way doing so bypassing, as expected, the elaborate procedures need to run from the original PEST codes.
At present, this solution lacks the uncertainty analyses, the most prominent promises of PEST.
And it should also be noted that Betami is still linked to the visual interface used to process the MODFLOW | PEST codes. Hence, it is susceptible to the internal routines and mathematical procedures embedded on these software’s.