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CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

Dr. Md. Ataur Rahman

Visiting Faculty, NSU
&
Professor, Department of Water Resources Engineering
BUET

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CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

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CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

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CEE 460: Ground Water Hydraulics

Lecture No. 1

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WHAT IS GROUNDWATER?

Groundwater is the water found

underground in the cracks and spaces in
soil, sand and rock.

It is stored in and moves slowly through

geologic formations of soil, sand and rocks
called aquifer.

(Aquifer)

How does water store in underground soil?

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What is groundwater?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyHtkDCwQUw

What is groundwater hydraulics?

The study of the distribution and movement of
groundwater is
hydrogeology, or
groundwater hydrology, or
groundwater hydraulics, or
groundwater flow.

It is the "part of streamflow that has infiltrated

the ground, entered the phreatic zone, and
has been discharged into a stream channel or
springs; and seepage water."

It is governed by the groundwater flow

equation.

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Hydrologic Cycle
Groundwater plays a key role in the hydrologic cycle.

To start the cycle, water evaporates from the oceans and condenses as clouds that eventually float across
the landscape and deliver their moisture in liquid (rain) or solid (snow, ice pellets) form. Some of this
water runs off the landscape, infiltrates into the soil and stored as groundwater, back to rivers that
eventually flow back to the oceans, completing that part of the cycle.

What is?
• Evaporation
• Transpiration
• Evapotranspiration
• Precipitation
• Infiltration
• Percolation
• Groundwater flow

How much water is there on, in, and above the

Earth?
The volume of the sphere, representing all water on, in, and
above the Earth, would be about

• 332,500,000 cubic miles (mi3)

• 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km3)

• about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) in diameter.

Sphere
1385 km

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Water table

Water table, also called groundwater table, upper

level of an underground surface in which the soil or rocks
are permanently saturated with water.

The water table separates the groundwater zone that lies

below it from the capillary fringe, or zone of aeration,
that lies above it.

The water table fluctuates both with the seasons and

from year to year because it is affected by climatic
variations and by the amount of precipitation used by
vegetation.

It also is affected by withdrawing excessive amounts of

water from wells or by recharging them artificially.

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Perched Water Table

A perched water table (or perched aquifer) is an

aquifer that occurs above the regional water
table.

This occurs when there is an impermeable layer of

rock or sediment (aquiclude) or relatively
impermeable layer (aquitard) above the main water
table/aquifer but below the land surface.

Thank You