Creating groundwater flow paths

[LeahVB]

Hi,

I want to create a map showing groundwater flow paths using a combination of surface topographical data and hydraulic head.  (I also have vertical hydraulic gradient data, if that's useful.)  My study site is approx. 30-m x 30-m.  I have many land elevation survey points and 8 points for hydraulic head.

I do know how to create a DEM for surface contours... and I expect it would be the same for hydraulic head.  What I don't know how to do is connect the two pieces of information to create one groundwater flow path map.  While reading up on this process I understand that kriging would be a good method to create the two separate layers.  Then you are supposed to turn the information into raster format (which I have not quite been able to figure out.) 

Thanks for any help!  I'm fairly new to ArcGIS and have been trying to figure out these flow paths for my Master's thesis.  If this tool works for me, that would make a world of difference!

Leah

[GregoryGeise]

Hi Leah,

I was doing something similar. I wanted to create a water table surface from water elevations in wells throughout my study area and stream elevations. The tool you want is Topo to Raster in 3D Analyst>Raster Interpolation. From there, you can add up to four features to have considered in the interpolation. For mine, I included the water elevation feature and the stream elevation feature.

Hope this helps,

Greg

[LeahVB]

Hi Greg,

Thank you for replying to my post. I have tried Topo to Raster, as you suggested, and did some more reading on this tool. I don't believe it is the correct tool for my purpose, though.  I want to create groundwater flow paths by using water table data and surface elevation. The surface that Topo to Raster produces is of a ground surface that has been sculpted by the action of surface runoff... where I want to interpolate the most likely path groundwater flows.

Again, thanks for the reply. Please let me know if you can think of anything other tool to use.

Leah

[ErikaSolli]

Hei. How did you calculate hydraulic head before to send over ArcMap? How you find how to do the flow patterns, I have one project with diferents wells and they give me diferents groundwater levels. The first ting i need to make is show the flow pattern. Can you please help me if you find the correct way??

Erika

[NawajishNoman]

Hi,

You can use Groundwater tools to create flow field. You can run Darcy Velocity tool to create direction and magnitude outputs. These Groundwater tools are available in the Spatial Analyst Tools toolbox.

Please see An overview of the Groundwater toolset and Groundwater analysis sample applications topics for additional information.

Thanks,

Noman