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Well in a uniform flow

Drawdown curves for well flow presented before have
assumed an initially horizontal groundwater surface.

A practical situation is that of a well pumping from an

aquifer having a uniform flow field, as indicated by a
uniformly sloping piezometric surface or water table.
 Well in a uniform flow
Figure below shows (a) sectional and (b) plan views of a well
penetrating a confined aquifer with a sloping piezometric
surface.

It is apparent that the circular area of influence associated with

a radial flow pattern becomes distorted; however, for most
relatively flat natural slopes the Dupuit radial flow equation can
be applied without appreciable error.
 Well in a uniform flow
For wells pumping from an area with a sloping hydraulic
gradient, the hydraulic conductivity can be determined from
the Equation Q = Av = -2πrbKdh/dr by inserting average
heads and hydraulic gradients. The resulting expression has
the form

for an unconfined aquifer where Q is the pumping rate, hu and

hd are the saturated thicknesses, and iu and id are the water
table slopes at distance r upstream and downstream,
respectively, from the well. For a confined aquifer, piezometric
slopes replace water table slopes, and (hu + hd) is replaced by
2b where b is the aquifer thickness.
 Well in a uniform flow
In the figure below, the groundwater divide marking the
boundary of the region producing inflow to the well is shown.

For a well pumping for an infinite time, the boundary would

extend up to the limit of the aquifer.

The expression for the boundary of the region producing inflow

can be derived by superposition of radial and one-dimensional
flow fields to yield
 Well in a uniform flow

where the rectangular coordinates are as shown in Figure

below with the origin at the well, b is the aquifer thickness, Q is
the discharge rate, i is the natural piezometric slope, and K is
hydraulic conductivity.
 Well in a uniform flow

From Equation the boundary asymptotically

approaches the finite limits

as x→∞.
 Well in a uniform flow

The boundary of the contributing area extends downstream to

a stagnation point where

It follows that the upstream inflow zone equals 2πXL

 Well in a uniform flow
EXAMPLE: A fully penetrating production well with a radius of 0.5 m pumps
at the rate of 15 L/s from a 35-m thick confined aquifer with a hydraulic
conductivity of 20 m/day. If the distance and the observed piezometric head
drop between two observation wells were 1000 m and 3 m, respectively,
before the production well was installed, determine the longitudinal and
transverse limits of groundwater entering the well.
SOLUTION: First determine the slope of the piezometric surface under
natural conditions (i.e., before the production well was installed):

It is assumed that the observation wells were aligned with the groundwater
flow direction. Then, compute the limits of groundwater entering the well on a
horizontal plane (i.e., plan view) for Q = 15 L/s = 1296 m3/day
 Well in a uniform flow
A practical result is that contaminant sources further than
98.2 m downstream of the well or ± 308 m in the
transverse direction do not impact the well.