Qingyuan Zhu , Keliu Wu , Qiqi Liu , Fei Peng , Shengting Zhang , Jianlin Zhao , Jing Li , Japan Trivedi , Zhangxin Chen
{"title":"Multi-mechanism modeling of gas-liquid hydraulic conductance","authors":"Qingyuan Zhu , Keliu Wu , Qiqi Liu , Fei Peng , Shengting Zhang , Jianlin Zhao , Jing Li , Japan Trivedi , Zhangxin Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2026.105214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2026.105214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hydraulic conductance is crucial for determining fluid transport capacity in porous media during energy recovery and storage. Inspired by the quasi-steady-state assumption of seepage flows, we developed a numerical model coupling creeping flow, momentum transfer, and interfacial slip, enabling precise modeling of two-phase hydraulic conductance under various mechanisms. We generated tens of thousands of data samples and constructed three machine learning models for hydraulic conductance prediction. Validation results demonstrate that these models outperform traditional empirical models in accuracy. Viscous coupling enhances the wetting phase conductance more significantly than the non-wetting phase, with its effect controlled by fluid and geometric configuration. A dimensionless slip length exceeding 0.01 elevates wetting phase conductance but has limited impact on the non-wetting phase. Non-wetting phase slip boosts the hydraulic conductance of both phases at a Knudsen number exceeding 0.01. The wetting film profoundly reshapes the velocity profiles and amplifies viscous coupling effect, with wetting film flow contributing as much as 60∼100% to the total wetting phase flow. Wetting film also strengthens the impact of slip on both phases' conductance. These findings highlight the intricate mechanisms controlling gas-liquid hydraulic conductance, especially the powerful control of wetting film, which is often underestimated in current pore-scale to core-scale analyses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"208 ","pages":"Article 105214"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145956967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A modified capillary pressure–saturation model for unsaturated flow in asphalt mixtures and hydraulic behavior analysis","authors":"Xinxing Bian , Huining Xu , Shiyuan Li","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105203","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105203","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The capillary pressure–saturation (<em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em>) relationship is a critical constitutive model for modeling multiphase flow in unsaturated porous media. In the context of asphalt pavements, however, existing <em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em> models predominantly rely on direct adoption of empirical formulations in unsaturated soil, lack rigorous experimental validation, and often fail to capture the unsaturated hydraulic characteristics of pavement materials. This study aims to (1) develop a continuous mathematical framework for the <em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em> relationship in asphalt mixtures by integrating the physical constraints derived from experimental data with the functional form of classical models, and (2) elucidate the impact of this relationship on unsaturated seepage dynamics. A modified van Genuchten model was formulated to provide a concise, physically consistent <em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em> function. The proposed model demonstrates improved fidelity to experimental data compared to conventional soil-based hydraulic models, while preserving mathematical tractability. By implementing this <em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em> constitutive relationship within a numerical solver (SEEP/W) for the Richards equation, the hysteretic behavior of unsaturated flow was simulated in asphalt mixtures. The simulations reveal that the unsaturated flow analysis, incorporating the proposed <em>P</em><sub>c</sub><em>–S</em> relationship, predicts a more complex and realistic moisture transport regime than the saturated flow approximation, and can reflect the observed in-service behavior of pavements. This work advances understanding of moisture transport in unsaturated asphalt mixtures and provides a useful tool for evaluating the long-term hydraulic performance in pavement–subsurface water systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"208 ","pages":"Article 105203"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146035612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chaotic advection in regional groundwater flow under periodic water table fluctuations: An analytical model with depth-dependent aquifer properties","authors":"Saurabh Maurya, Ratan Sarmah, Ickkshaanshu Sonkar","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2026.105215","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2026.105215","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Reliable prediction of groundwater flow dynamics is often hindered by the assumption of uniform aquifer parameters, leading to biased estimates of hydraulic head. Despite their well-established depth-dependence relationship, most analytical solutions remain restricted to homogeneous or single-layer aquifer systems. This study develops a two-dimensional transient analytical model for a multilayer regional aquifer driven by a fluctuating water table, explicitly incorporating depth-dependent hydraulic conductivity and specific storage while accounting for pumping. The analytical solution is derived using the Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT), ensuring implicit continuity of head and flux across layer interfaces without requiring iterative eigenvalue estimation, providing a rigorous framework to capture the complexities of stratified aquifers. Model verification is performed against a benchmark single-layer solution, and independent validation is carried out with COMSOL Multiphysics simulations, showing excellent agreement. Parameter influence and reliability are further assessed through global sensitivity analysis and uncertainty evaluation. A novel contribution of this work is the identification of chaotic flow behaviour within a three-layer Tóthian basin, analyzed using the Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponent (FTLE). Results show that chaotic dynamics are most pronounced near the upper boundary, where FTLE values are significantly higher than in deeper zones and further enhancement is observed under periodic injection. Moreover, specific storage is found to enhance the swirly motion of particle trajectories, increasing residence times near pseudo-stagnation zones. The proposed analytical framework bridges a critical gap in multilayer transient flow modeling, advances the theoretical understanding of stratified aquifer systems, and provides a robust benchmark for numerical and field-scale groundwater investigations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"208 ","pages":"Article 105215"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145956936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Generative adversarial network-based super-resolution of subsurface rock images: Visual, petrophysical, and flow simulation assessment","authors":"Mohammad Hamidian, Rohaldin Miri, Hossein Fazeli","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105184","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105184","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>High-resolution (HR) micro-CT imaging of porous reservoir rocks plays a critical role in digital rock physics and flow simulations, yet it is limited by the resolution–field-of-view trade-off. To address this challenge, we propose a Pore-Preserving Denoised Generative Adversarial Network (PPD-GAN), trained on denoised, HR two-dimensional computed tomography (CT) slices to recover fine-scale pore structures from low-resolution (LR) images. The PPD-GAN model is systematically compared against seven convolutional neural network (CNN)-based SR methods and bicubic interpolation using both image-based metrics—including Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) and Learned Perceptual Image Patch Similarity (LPIPS)—and a comprehensive set of petro-physical metrics, including porosity, connectivity, pore size distribution, skeleton topology, and grain boundary preservation. Results show that although CNN models yield high pixel-wise fidelity, the PPD-GAN model achieves superior perceptual quality and reconstructs structural features that are consistently closer to ground truth across all physical metrics. Furthermore, pore-scale transport simulations on three-dimensional (3D) core images confirm that PPD-GAN outputs accurately replicate ground-truth (GT) properties such as permeability, diffusivity, and relative permeability—substantially outperforming bicubic interpolation. These findings demonstrate that the proposed PPD-GAN model not only enhances visual resolution but also preserves physically meaningful characteristics, enabling reliable downstream simulation and analysis.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105184"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145657972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decision-making under uncertainty for LT-ATES systems in complex subsurface settings: application to a low-transmissivity aquifer","authors":"Luka Tas , Jef Caers , Thomas Hermans","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105193","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105193","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Low-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage systems (LT-ATES) store excess thermal energy in the subsurface and recover it when needed to heat and cool buildings sustainably. Complex subsurface settings are increasingly targeted for storage. Existing design guidelines cannot be readily applied because they were developed for homogeneous sandy aquifers. In complex settings, subsurface uncertainty translates into uncertainty about system feasibility or efficiency. This paper introduces a method to establish a decision tree for ATES based on uncertainty analysis. It combines Monte Carlo simulations of groundwater flow and heat transport with sensitivity analysis, joint probability distribution estimation and kernel density estimation. For illustration the method is applied to a low-transmissivity aquifer where hydraulic and thermal feasibility are the main prediction targets. Sensitivity analyses based on clustering reveal the impact of model parameters and engineering actions on both prediction targets. In the specific case study, we find for example that storage conditions with transmissivity below 20 m²/d lead to inefficient systems. Desirable storage conditions have transmissivity above 40 m²/d, while intermediate values require thorough risk analysis. Thermal breakthrough risk is higher when longitudinal dispersivity is above 3 m. Further, our approach results in some minimum requirements in terms of subsurface properties that have to be reached for which an investment is justified. On top, the decision tree proposes target engineering actions to decrease investment risk while optimizing return. As such, the proposed method effectively guides early investment decisions for LT-ATES in complex subsurface settings without requiring field data.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105193"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145689898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Physics-Informed Adaptive-Wavelet Neural Network (PIAWNN) for reservoir simulation with two-phase flow","authors":"Haifeng Zhu , Zhiming Chen , Xin Gao , Xing Chen , Wei Yu , Kamy Sepehrnoori","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105174","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105174","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The flow of oil and water represents the most common two-phase regime in reservoir development. The frontal position and diffusion law of water saturation and pressure are typically delineated using nonlinear partial differential equations. However, these equations exhibit strong nonlinearity. Conventional numerical approaches demand substantial computational resources, posing challenges in handling such equations. Recently, physics - informed neural networks (PINNs) have opened new avenues for solving partial differential equations, while existing PINNs methods still suffer from high computational expenses. To address this, we propose a physics - informed adaptive wavelet neural network (PIAWNN) as a simulator for oil - water two - phase flow. The solution of pressure at the subsequent time step is primarily achieved by iterating the loss function structured in the form of the finite volume method. Additionally, the implicit pressure explicit saturation method is employed to update saturation. For two-dimensional problems, results demonstrate that the mean absolute error and mean relative error reach a low level. When solve three-dimensional complex scenarios, we find the proposed PIAWNN remains applicable. Comparing training performances across different networks, a notable finding emerges: as grid size increases, PIAWNN's training time and accuracy do not deteriorate significantlyand it outperforms physics-informed convolutional neural network (PICNN) and PINN. These results suggest PIAWNN holds promise for yielding novel insights into solving nonlinear systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105174"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Francisco J. Valdés-Parada , Didier Lasseux , Brian D. Wood
{"title":"A simple derivation of the geometric theorems for averaging and Errata for the article Adv. Water Res., 32 (2013) 340-352","authors":"Francisco J. Valdés-Parada , Didier Lasseux , Brian D. Wood","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105181","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105181","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The derivation of upscaled models using the volume averaging method involves the use of the spatial averaging theorem. From its use, further geometrical identities arise when it is applied to a position vector or its dyadic products at the <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span>th-order, <em>i.e.</em>, the <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span>-adic product. The derivation of these geometrical identities is revised in this work in a concise manner that corrects some inconsistencies in the technical note by Wood (2013). These new derivations strengthen the use of the volume averaging method in many transfer problems, in particular in porous media.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105181"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145689911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuening Tang , Mengfan Wang , Chunhui Lu , Jian Luo
{"title":"Analytical investigation of pumping in finite coastal aquifers under heterogeneous recharge and various boundary conditions","authors":"Yuening Tang , Mengfan Wang , Chunhui Lu , Jian Luo","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105171","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105171","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effective pumping management is critical for coastal aquifers to address high freshwater demand in densely populated areas while mitigating seawater intrusion risks. Previous analytical studies have not considered the effects of heterogeneous recharge for pumping in coastal aquifers. We present the first analytical solutions for groundwater withdrawal under heterogeneous recharge conditions in finite rectangular aquifers with diverse boundary conditions. The solutions allow determination of toe positions for single- and multi-well systems, as well as the critical pumping rate for single wells. Results show that the maximum allowable pumping rate increases with the domain aspect ratio and eventually stabilizes, with stabilized values differing by <5 % across domains with varying numbers of sea boundaries for a centrally located well at an aspect ratio of 5. Boundary conditions exert a distinct influence on system behavior. The critical pumping rates of wells adjacent to sea boundaries show minimal sensitivity to heterogeneous recharge patterns, whereas those near no-flow boundaries exhibit high sensitivity. Uncertainty analysis confirms the contrasting influences of these two boundary types and further demonstrates that inter-percentile differences remain largely insensitive to recharge heterogeneity under the studied configurations. These analytical solutions extend classical potential theory to more realistic recharge and boundary conditions, offering a computationally efficient and physically transparent tool for preliminary design, sensitivity analysis, and sustainable groundwater management in coastal aquifers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105171"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145473287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Generative modeling of three-dimensional multiphase flow in porous media","authors":"Serveh Kamrava","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105196","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105196","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding multiphase flow in porous media requires models that capture complex pore geometries and reproduce realistic fluid distributions under diverse boundary conditions. In this paper, we propose a generative framework that combines variational machine learning with a denoising diffusion approach to build 3D multiphase pore structures directly from micro-CT images. The model is trained on small subvolumes to balance resolution with computational feasibility, enabling efficient training and rapid generation of new realizations. Quantitative comparisons show good agreement between generated and experimental samples across morphological metrics and statistical functions, while permeability distributions are reproduced within the range of variability. The variational component of the proposed method provides a compact latent representation that accelerates sampling and also increases the diversity of multiphase configurations that the model can generate, capturing a wider range of pore-scale fluid distributions. The framework allows tiling strategies to produce larger domains that remain consistent with pore-scale data, to scale from local heterogeneity to larger representative volumes. This method generates ensembles of realistic multiphase structures that can be used as input for sampling, conditioning, and optimization workflows in porous media applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105196"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145731387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuzhou Xia , Chuanjun Zhan , Zhenxue Dai , Jichun Wu , Xiaoying Zhang , Huichao Yin , Jiahe Yan , Junjun Chen , Zihao Wang , Mohamad Reza Soltanian , Kenneth C. Carroll
{"title":"Impact of observation and surrogate-model noises on deep learning-based subsurface heterogeneous structure identification through monitoring network optimization","authors":"Yuzhou Xia , Chuanjun Zhan , Zhenxue Dai , Jichun Wu , Xiaoying Zhang , Huichao Yin , Jiahe Yan , Junjun Chen , Zihao Wang , Mohamad Reza Soltanian , Kenneth C. Carroll","doi":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105204","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.advwatres.2025.105204","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Accurate identification of subsurface structures is essential for enhancing geoscientific modeling and monitoring, thereby deepening the understanding of earth system. Although recent advances in deep learning have greatly enhanced the computational efficiency of structure identification, the identification accuracy can still be degraded by the spatial stochasticity of monitoring locations, observation noise and surrogate model noise. To address these challenges, this study develops a transition probability and entropy-based monitoring network optimization method, which can determine monitoring locations with high data worth. Based on this method, a synthetic contaminant transport experiment was conducted to obtain dynamic observations of hydraulic head, solute concentration, and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). The impacts of observation and model noise on inversion results for different data types were then quantitatively analyzed. The results indicate that ERT data exhibit strong noise resistance, with average identification accuracy reductions of only 1.59% and 2.24% under 15% observation noise and model noise, respectively. Moreover, incorporating ERT data into data fusion scenarios enhances the robustness of other observation types, particularly solute concentration data, for which the accuracy decrease is limited to 1.24% even under the highest observation noise level. Model noise not only reduces the accuracy of structure identification but also increases uncertainty, and this negative effect is further amplified in data fusion scenarios.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7614,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Water Resources","volume":"207 ","pages":"Article 105204"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145880963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}