Percolation Induced Heat Transfer in Deep Unsaturated Zones
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 129, Issue 11
Abstract
Subsurface temperature data from a borehole located in a desert wash were measured and used to delineate the conductive and advective heat transfer regimes, and to estimate the percolation quantity associated with the 1997–1998 El Niño precipitation. In an arid environment, conductive heat transfer dominates the variation of shallow subsurface temperature most of the time, except during sporadic precipitation periods. The subsurface time-varying temperature due to conductive heat transfer is highly correlated with the surface atmospheric temperature variation, whereas temperature variation due to advective heat transfer is strongly correlated with precipitation events. The advective heat transfer associated with precipitation and infiltration is the focus of this paper. Disruptions of the subsurface conductive temperature regime, associated with the 1997–1998 El Niño precipitation, were detected and used to quantify the percolation quantity. Modeling synthesis using a one-dimensional coupled heat and unsaturated flow model indicated that a percolation per unit area of 0.7 to 1.3 m height of water in two weeks during February 1998 was responsible for the observed temperature deviations down to a depth of 35.2 m. The reported study demonstrated quantitatively, for the first time, that the near surface temperature variation due to advective heat transfer can be significant at a depth greater than 10 m in unsaturated soils and can be used to infer the percolation amount in thick unsaturated soils.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Boyle, J. M., and Saleem, Z. A.(1979). “Determination of recharge rates using temperature-depth profiles in wells.” Water Resour. Res., 15, 1616–1622.
Bredehoeft, J. D., and Papadopulos, S. S.(1965). “Rates of vertical groundwater movement estimated from the Earth thermal profile.” Water Resour. Res., 1, 325–328.
Cartwright, K.(1970). “Groundwater recharge in the Illinois basin as suggested by temperature anomalies.” Water Resour. Res., 6, 912–918.
Cartwright, K.(1979). “Measurement of fluid velocity using temperature profiles: Experimental verification.” J. Hydrol., 43, 185–194.
Constantz, J., and Thomas, C. L.(1997). “Stream bed temperature profiles as indicators of percolation characteristics beneath arroyos in the middle Rio Grande basin, USA.” Hydrolog. Process., 11, 1621–1634.
Constantz, J., Thomas, C. L., and Zellweger, G.(1994). “Influence of diurnal variations in stream temperature on streamflow loss and groundwater recharge.” Water Resour. Res., 30, 3253–3264.
Flint, A. L., Flint, L. E., Kwicklis, E. M., Fabryka-Martin, J. T., and Bodvarsson, G. S.(2002). “Estimating recharge at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA: Comparison of methods.” Hydrogeol. J., 10, 180–204.
Flint, L. E., and Flint, A. L. (1990). “Preliminary permeability and water-retention data for nonwelded and bedded tuff samples, Yucca Mountain area, Nye county, Nevada.” USGS Open File Rep. No. 90-569, Denver.
Hillel, D. (1980). Fundamentals of soil physics, Academic, New York.
Jaynes, D. B.(1990). “Temperature variations effect on field-measured infiltration.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 54, 305–312.
Kume, J., and Rousseau, J. P. (1994). “A borehole instrumentation program for characterization of unsaturated zone percolation.” Proc., Fifth Annual Int. Conf. on High-Level Radioactive Waste Management, American Nuclear Society and ASCE, New York, 4, 2076–2083.
Loskot, C. L., and Hammermeister, D. P. (1992). “Geohydrologic data from test holes UE-25 UZ #4 and UE-25 UZ #5, Yucca Mountain area, Nevada.” USGS Open File Rep. No. 90-369, Denver.
Lu, N.(1999). “Time-series analysis for determining vertical air permeability in unsaturated zones.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 125(1), 69–77.
Lu, N., and Ge, S.(1996). “Effect of horizontal heat and fluid flow on the vertical temperature distribution in a semiconfining layer.” Water Resour. Res., 32, 1449–1453.
Lu, N., Kwicklis, E. M., and Rousseau, J. P.(2001). “Determining fault permeability from subsurface barometric pressure.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 127(9), 801–808.
Massman, J., and Farrier, D. F.(1992). “Effects of atmospheric pressure on gas transport in the vadose zone.” Water Resour. Res., 28(3), 777–791.
Nightingale, H. I.(1975). “Ground-water recharge rates from thermometry.” Ground Water, 13, 340–344.
Osterkamp, W. R., Lane, L. J., and Menges, C. M.(1995). “Techniques of ground-water recharge estimates in arid/semi-arid area, with examples from Abu Dhabi.” J. Arid Environ., 31, 349–369.
Pruess, K. (1987). “TOUGH users guide.” Rep. No. SAND 86-7104, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M.
Pruess, K. (1991). “TOUGH2—A general-purpose numerical simulator for multiphase fluid and heat flow.” Rep. No. LBL-29400, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.
Rautman, C. A. (1995). “Preliminary geostatistical modeling of thermal conductivity for a cross section of Yucca Mountain, Nevada.” Rep. No. SAND-94-2283, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M.
Rousseau, J. P., Kwickles, E. M., and Gillies, D. C. (1999). “Hydrogeology of the unsaturated zone, north ramp area of the exploratory studies facility, Yucca Mountain, Nevada.” Water Resources Investigations Rep. No. 98-4050, USGS, Denver.
Sammel, E. A.(1968). “Convective flow and its effect on temperature logging in small-diameter wells.” Geophysics, 33, 1004–1012.
Sammis, T. W., Evans, D. D., and Warrick, A. W.(1982). “Comparison of methods to estimate deep percolation rates.” Water Resour. Bull., 18, 465–470.
Sharma, M. L., and Taniguchi, M.(1993). “Determination of groundwa-ter recharge using the change in soil temperature.” J. Hydrol., 148, 219–229.
Silliman, S. E., and Booth, D. F.(1993). “Analysis of time-series measurements of sediment temperature for identification of gaining vs. losing portions of Juday Creek, Indiana.” J. Hydrol., 146, 131–148.
Silliman, S. E., Ramirez, J., and McCabe, R. L.(1995). “Quantifying downflow through creek sediments using temperature time series: One-dimensional solution incorporating measured surface temperature.” J. Hydrol., 167, 99–119.
Stallman, R. W.(1965). “Steady one-dimensional fluid flow in a semi-infinite porous medium with sinusoidal surface temperature.” J. Geophys. Res., 70, 2821–2885.
Stallman, R. W.(1967). “Flow in the zone of aeration.” Adv. Hydrosci., 4, 151–195.
Stephens, D. B. (1996). Vadose zone hydrology, Lewis, New York.
Suzuki, S.(1960). “Percolation measurements based on heat flow through soil with special reference to paddy fields.” J. Geophys. Res., 65, 2883–2885.
Taniguchi, M.(1993). “Evaluation of vertical groundwater fluxes and thermal properties of aquifers based on transient temperature-depth profiles.” Water Resour. Res., 29(7), 2021–2026.
van Genuchten, M. Th.(1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44, 892–898.
Weeks, E. P. (1970). “Field determination of vertical permeability to air in the unsaturated zone.” Professional Paper No. 1051, USGS, Denver.
Wierenga, P. J., Hagan, R. M., and Nielsen, D. R.(1970). “Soil temperature profiles during infiltration and redistribution of cool and warm irrigation water.” Water Resour. Res., 6, 230–238.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 129 • Issue 11 • November 2003
Pages: 1040 - 1053
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 26, 2001
Accepted: Jan 2, 2003
Published online: Oct 15, 2003
Published in print: Nov 2003
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.