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Response of a laboratory aquifer to rainfall

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2014

A. Guérin ,
O. Devauchelle  and
E. Lajeunesse
A. Guérin*
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, 1 rue Jussieu, 75238 Paris, France
O. Devauchelle
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, 1 rue Jussieu, 75238 Paris, France
E. Lajeunesse
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, 1 rue Jussieu, 75238 Paris, France
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

We investigate the response of a laboratory aquifer submitted to artificial rainfall, with an emphasis on the early stage of a rain event. In this almost two-dimensional experiment, the infiltrating rainwater forms a groundwater reservoir which exits the aquifer through one side. The resulting outflow resembles a typical stream hydrograph: the water discharge increases rapidly during rainfall and decays slowly after the rain has stopped. The Dupuit–Boussinesq theory, based on Darcy’s law and the shallow-water approximation, quantifies these two asymptotic regimes. At the early stage of a rainfall event, the discharge increases linearly with time, at a rate proportional to the rainfall rate to the power of ${\textstyle \frac{3}{2}}$. Long after the rain has stopped, it decreases as the squared inverse of time (Boussinesq, C. R. Acad. Sci., vol. 137, 1903, pp. 5–11). We compare these predictions with our experimental data.

JFM classification

Low-Reynolds-number flows: Hele-Shaw flows Low-Reynolds-number flows: Low-Reynolds-number flows Low-Reynolds-number flows: Porous media
Type
Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 759 , 25 November 2014 , R1
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Copyright
© 2014 Cambridge University Press 

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