Characterizing Soil Permeability based on Response of Groundwater Level to River Stage using Regional Database

Abstract The coefficient of permeability ( k ) is an important soil property for various flow-related problems and site characterization. In this study, a new method for estimating k is proposed based on the response of groundwater level (GWL) to changes in river stage (RS). Focus was given on establishing a method to characterize regional permeability using local database without additional experimental testing procedure. For this purpose, the GWL-RS correlation model was introduced and adopted to establish a k correlation model based on the time response of GWL to RS. The effect of time delay between GWL response and RS was introduced into the process of characterizing k . The proposed method was calibrated using measured datasets of GWL and RS obtained from 17 different regions. Based on the results of comparison and calibration with measured datasets, a modification factor was established and introduced to achieve better match between estimated and measured values. To check the applicability of the proposed method, datasets from five different regions in US were collected and adopted into the comparison. It was confirmed that measured and predicted soil permeabilities were in reasonably close agreement.