Characterizing the hydraulic conductivity of soil based on the moving average of precipitation and groundwater level using a regional database

Abstract

Hydraulic conductivity is an important geological and geotechnical characteristic, necessary for flow-related problems and underground construction. In many countries, databases for hydrology parameters and groundwater level (GWL) are well established, often not fully utilized for directly estimating hydraulic conductivity characteristics. In this study, a method for estimating hydraulic conductivity based on a regionally established database of hydrological, geological, and geotechnical parameters is proposed. For this purpose, 68 databases of hydrological, geological and geotechnical parameters in different regions in Korea were collected and adopted to develop a data-based estimation method of soil hydraulic conductivity. The time response of GWL to precipitation was considered as a key influence factor on the hydraulic conductivity of soil, as it directly affected the infiltration process of rainfalls into soil deposits. Moving average (MA) of precipitation was introduced, which gave the best correlation to GWL, to account for the effect of accumulated precedent precipitation. Case examples were selected and used to check the validity of the proposed method.