Intergrated Water Resources Management

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Environmental impact assessment using FORM and groundwater system reliability concept: case study Jining, China
(Springer, 2008-08-01) Shu, Long; Liu, Pei-Gui; Ong'or, Basil
In this paper, fist-order reliability method (FORM) is used to evaluate the impacts of uncertainties posed by traditionaldeterministic models on the environment in Jining, China. Because of groundwater contamination in shallow aquifer, and anincrease in water demand, the new wells target the confined aquifer with constant pumping rate of 5,000m3/d. Using Theis equation, the groundwater drawdown is analyzed to determine whether the confined aquifer will be contaminated.Although the piezometric level is higher than the phreatic level by 11.0m, the risk of drawdown is still 19.49% when thepumping rate of 5,000m3/d is maintained for 2years. The deterministic model indicates a drawdown of 8.94m which is lower than the maximum tolerancedrawdown of 11.0m. The sensitivity and uncertainty analysis reveal that the model result is more sensitive to transmissivitythan specific yield, while the reliability analysis offers significant information for the decision makers. This approachexposes and minimizes the risk of undesirable consequences such as groundwater contamination.