Abstract:
Ground water flow modeling and optimization techniques are coupled to determine the optimal cost of pumping to reduce the groundwater table of a confined aquifer at steady state condition. An optimal aquifer pumping model employing a non-linear programming was developed to find the minimum cost of pumping in a confined aquifer at steady state. The nonlinear model include two objective functions: minimizing the cost of pumping and maximizing the discharge from the aquifer. Bacterial Foraging Techniques (BFT) is used to optimize the cost function The cost of pumping includes the fixed cost of system construction and installation as well as operation and maintenance. Results show that fixed costs has significant impact on the cost of aquifer pumping system. The sensitivities of different parameters such as cost of pumping and pumping discharge to variations in the permeability of soil and drawdown are studied by varying K and S(k) over wide range.
