Methodology for Estimating Groundwater Travel Times at a Nuclear Waste Repository Using a Physically Based Geostatistical Approach

摘要

This paper summarized the results of an investigation performed at Sandia National Laboratories to test a methodology for estimating groundwater travel times at potential high-level nuclear waste repository sites. The procedure is based on parameter estimation (inverse problem) that uses available hydraulic head and transmissivity observations and includes uncertainty in the boundary head values in the estimation of a transmissivity field. Following parameter estimation, the methodology propagates uncertainty in transmissivity and boundary heads to the simulation of the groundwater flow field. The methodology was tested for sensitivity to various assumptions using available data from the Basalt Waste Isolation Project in the Northwestern Unites States. 9 refs., 4 figs. (ERA citation 13:053295)