A field evidence model: how to predict transport in heterogeneous aquifers at low investigation level

Zech, Alraune; Dietrich, Peter; Attinger, Sabine; Teutsch, Georg

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1-2021

Articles | Volume 25, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 1

Research article

|

04 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 04 Jan 2021

A field evidence model: how to predict transport in heterogeneous aquifers at low investigation level

Alraune Zech, Peter Dietrich, Sabine Attinger, and Georg Teutsch

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Final revised paper (published on 04 Jan 2021)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Feb 2020)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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SC1: 'Omitted references and non-originality', joost herweijer, 27 Feb 2020
- AC1: 'Short response to comment', Alraune Zech, 07 Apr 2020
RC1: 'Review of Zech et al', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Mar 2020
- SC2: 'Quick comment on 2D vs 3D', joost herweijer, 09 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'Final author comments to Referee #1:', Alraune Zech, 18 May 2020
RC2: 'another review of Zech et al', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Mar 2020
- AC3: 'Final author comments to Referee #2:', Alraune Zech, 18 May 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (22 May 2020) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Alraune Zech on behalf of the Authors (12 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Jul 2020) by Nunzio Romano

RR by Xavier Sanchez-Vila (07 Jul 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (06 Aug 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This is an interesting paper trying to prove that stochastic groundwater modeling is possible. The authors discuss a modular approach to incorporate heterogeneity into groundwater flow modeling. Then they apply to one of the experiments in the well-known MADE site. I recommend publication after some "minor" corrections, in the sense that they will take little time to implement, but "major," in the sense that they lower the author's claims. I like the paper because it shows that stochastic modeling is possible. I do not like some of the claims and discussions. I do not like that the model is two-dimensional, either.

MAJOR CORRECTIONS

1. There is nothing new in this modular approach to incorporating heterogeneity into aquifer modeling. Any claim of originality in this respect should be toned down, and references to similar approaches in groundwater modeling or reservoir engineering included. (A few references implementing this concept could be Damsleth et al., 1992, Huysmans and Dassargues, 2009, Neto et al., 1994, Proce et al., 2004, to cite a few dating back to the past century). Please, rewrite lines 64-65 with proper referencing.

2. Already in the abstract, the authors claim that their model is constructed with as minimal data as possible. This is clearly not so in the description of the application. The amount of data used is substantial and hardly available in most sites. Even if some of the data are not used as conditioning data, they are needed to infer the different parameters of the nested heterogeneous models.

3. In the introduction, some statements should be toned down, and a few historical references are missing.

3.1. In line 40, it says that huge amounts of data are needed for kriging. Certainly, you need data to infer the variograms, but not as many as the one you need in the latter application, where you claim that hardly any data are used.

3.2. In line 42, it says that stochastic methods, on the other hand, need a limited amount of data. Kriging is a stochastic method, which apparently needs a huge amount of data. In any case, the statement is not true, stochastic methods need data, large amounts, as it is shown later.

3.3. When listing the common methods, some historical references are missing, such as Gómez-Hernández and Gorelick, 1989, for Gaussian random fields; Journel and Gómez-Hernández, 1990, for indicator simulation; and Strebelle for multiple-point statistics. (By the way, Freeze, 1975 is not the best example of the use of Gaussian random fields, since he used uncorrelated values.)

3.4 Line 76, it seems that the number of data used is not minimal. Previous works have shown that properly accounting for hydraulic conductivity heterogeneity at the MADE site is sufficient to reproduce the mass transport behavior at the MADE site (i.e., Salamon et al. (2006), or Li et al. (2011))

4. For the paper to really serve its purpose of enticing practitioners to use stochastic modeling, the model would have had to be three-dimensional. But it is not! How much does the dimensionality reduction influence the results? This must be discussed.

Damsleth, E., Tjolsen, C. B., Omre, H., & Haldorsen, H. H. (1992). A two-stage stochastic model applied to a North Sea reservoir. Journal of Petroleum Technology, 44(04), 402-486.
Gómez‐Hernández, J. J., & Gorelick, S. M. (1989). Effective groundwater model parameter values: Influence of spatial variability of hydraulic conductivity, leakance, and recharge. Water Resources Research, 25(3), 405-419.
Li, L., Zhou, H., & Gómez-Hernández, J. J. (2011). A comparative study of three-dimensional hydraulic conductivity upscaling at the macro-dispersion experiment (MADE) site, Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi (USA). Journal of Hydrology, 404(3-4), 278-293.
Huysmans, M., & Dassargues, A. (2009). Application of multiple-point geostatistics on modelling groundwater flow and transport in a cross-bedded aquifer (Belgium). Hydrogeology Journal, 17(8), 1901.
Journel, A. G., & Gomez-Hernandez, J. J. (1993). Stochastic imaging of the Wilmington clastic sequence. SPE formation Evaluation, 8(01), 33-40.
Neton, M. J., Dorsch, J., Olson, C. D., & Young, S. C. (1994). Architecture and directional scales of heterogeneity in alluvial-fan aquifers. Journal of Sedimentary Research, 64(2b), 245-257.
Proce, C. J., Ritzi, R. W., Dominic, D. F., & Dai, Z. (2004). Modeling multiscale heterogeneity and aquifer interconnectivity. Groundwater, 42(5), 658-670.
Salamon, P., Fernandez‐Garcia, D., & Gómez‐Hernández, J. J. (2007). Modeling tracer transport at the MADE site: the importance of heterogeneity. Water resources research, 43(8).
Strebelle, S. (2002). Conditional simulation of complex geological structures using multiple-point statistics. Mathematical geology, 34(1), 1-21.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Sep 2020)

RR by joost herweijer (02 Sep 2020)

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (15 Sep 2020) by Nunzio Romano

Dear Authors:
Your revised documents, together with your rebuttal, were evaluated by four reviewers, three of them had already participated in the discussion step of the journal.
Three out of the present reviewers evaluated fairly well the scientific quality of your revised paper and the presentation of the relevant results. Instead, the scientific significance of your study received contrasting comments, and one reviewer was quite critical with respect to both the scientific significance and quality of your study.

After having read again all the documents pertaining to your submission, I recognize that you put a great effort into improving the original paper, by providing also satisfactory responses to all of the comments and concerns raised during the discussion step. However, I also concur with the present reviewers that even this revised version is still not in a shape to be published in HESS and should require some additional revisions.
By sharing the comment from one reviewer, I do believe that the present contribution is definitely not the only example of a hierarchical approach to transport in heterogeneous porous materials and soils, and it will not be an isolated case, I guess (to the benefit of Science). Anyhow, I do suggest the Authors should carefully consider revising their paper according to the concerns and points now raised by Refs. #2 and #3. Moreover, due attention should be given to all of the comments received by Ref. #4.

Therefore, you are invited to upload new revised documents, together with point-by-point replies to all of the comments received by the reviewers. Should you disagree with some comments, please explain why clearly.

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AR by Alraune Zech on behalf of the Authors (26 Oct 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (02 Nov 2020) by Nunzio Romano