Applying a Reservoir Simulator to Improve Ground Water Modeling

Modeling technology applied for over 25 years in the oil and gas industry has been adapted to ground water modeling and used successfully in water resource studies.  The objective to develop the simulation code is fundamentally different from standard ground water simulators, because it is based on a fully implicit and multi-phase approach of complex geological systems.  Being a finite volume simulator, the grid generation and geometry options of the grid are extremely flexible in order to handle complex hydrogeological conditions.  Highly deviated, horizontal wells and well performance parameters can be represented allowing an improved near well dynamic behavior leading to proper management of water wells and well fields. 

A comparison of the main functionalities between the used reservoir simulator and other existing ground water simulators will be presented.  Ground water benchmarks and case studies will demonstrate the workflows necessary to build an advanced 3D numerical ground water model.  The insight in oil and gas workflows for numerical modeling will add a new perspective in how to value the input data to build the ground water model and subsequently the calibration of the simulation results.