Whitney Trainor

The motivation for my research is to study some uncertainties about the process called aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) or managed artificial recharge (MAR).  During times of excess surface water (rainy season or high snow year), this surplus is injected into the ground with the intent of storing it there for use at a later time when the need may be greater (dry season or drought).  Some have attempted to model and predict the recovery of the injected water.  These studies have shortcomings in the hydrogeology (assumptions of a homogeneous subsurface) and usually do not include inter-well data collection (geophysics). 

GPR, ERT and EM techniques are used to image the subsurface water content.  Results gained from these near-surface geophysical techniques depend on accurate forward-modeling of preferential flow paths or other a priori information about the geometry of the injected water.  This is again deems homogeneous models of the aquifer as insufficient. 

I aim to develop a modeling workflow that includes data integration before geophysical survey design.  Flow simulation can be preformed on several geologically realistic models to determine how to best image the injection, monitoring and recovery process. This will enhance results from the geophysics.  The final step will be to include this a priori information in the inversion of geophysical data as well.