Optimization Model for Groundwater Management in Multi‐Aquifer Systems

Abstract

The use of embedding technique as a mechanism for coupling the simulation model of a particular groundwater system with an optimization model has been extended herein to multi‐aquifer systems. The combined management model is used to determine the optimal groundwater management schemes in a hypothetical multi‐aquifer system under transient and steady state conditions. The model enables the determination of optimal allocation of wells in different aquifers and their pumping rates to achieve a system‐wide maximum head distribution while satisfying the water production targets, well capacity restrictions, and lower bounds on hydraulic heads at critical points. Constraint and weighting methods of the multiobjective programming techniques are used to develop trade‐off curves relating the sum of hydraulic heads in the whole system as well as in individual aquifers at various water production targets. The generated trade‐off curves may enhance the decision maker's ability to select the best development policy from a set of alternative policies by considering other technological, financial, and legal constraints.