The development of pump test methods is well documented, have extensive limitation and rely on a limited number of aquifer stress periods to evaluate the yield and stability of an aquifer. In some instances, major planning and implementation decisions are made on a handful of aquifer tests. The limitation of this approach is the intermingling of historical data with recent aquifer test data. The latter assumption is that the aquifer system is static in performance behaviour over an extended timeframe or that recent results are indicative of future performance.
Experience indicates that the stability of bore fields is not stationary. Bulk aquifer parameters can be influenced by several factors, which include the development of bore fields, mineralisation potential, saline intrusion, geological stability, and aquifer type.
In potable water supply for a regional council, the evolution of the water yield from abstraction points is a critical factor. The ability to track performance over time and react in a pro-active manner is of vital importance to maintaining regional development. In order to support the council, we applied HydroRate software, which automates the fitting and evaluation of multiple pump test results. It can implement a number of models in its assessment methodology, producing statistically relevant data for pump and recovery phases. The resultant data yields a higher confidence interval in the input parameters for planning and decision support systems.
The second feature of HydroRate is automated fitting of slug test data, although of lesser concern in large scale planning it can supply valuable information for contaminated land sites. It can evaluate over- and underdamped data with the evaluation of multiple permeability factors.
The paper will present data and analysis from two cases studies, which includes performance criteria and application results.