Aquifer storage and recovery in layered saline aquifers: Importance of layer‐arrangements

Abstract

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) refers to injecting freshwater into an aquifer and later withdrawing it. In brackish‐to‐saline aquifers, density‐driven convection and fresh‐saline water mixing lead to a reduced recovery efficiency (RE, i.e., the volumetric ratio between recovered potable water and injected freshwater) of ASR. For a layered aquifer, previous studies assume a constant hydraulic conductivity ratio between neighboring layers. In order to reflect the realistic formation of layered aquifers, we systematically investigate 120 layered heterogeneous scenarios with different layer arrangements on multiple‐cycle ASR using numerical simulations. Results show that the convection (as is reflected by the tilt of the fresh‐saline interface) and mixing phenomena of the ASR system vary significantly among scenarios with different layer arrangements. In particular, the lower permeable layer underlying the higher permeable layer restricts the free convection and leads to the spreading of salinity at the bottom of the higher permeable layer and early salt breakthrough to the well. Correspondingly, the RE values are different among the heterogeneous scenarios, with a maximum absolute RE difference of 22% for the first cycle and 9% for the tenth cycle. Even though the difference in RE decreases with more ASR cycles, it is still non‐negligible and needs to be considered after ten ASR cycles. The method to homogenize the layered heterogeneity by simply taking the arithmetic and geometric means of the hydraulic conductivities among different layers as the horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivities is shown to overestimate the RE for multiple‐cycle ASR. The outcomes of this research illustrate the importance of considering the geometric arrangement of layers in assessing the feasibility of multiple‐cycle ASR operations in brackish‐to‐saline layered aquifers.