Numerical modeling of groundwater flow based on explicit and fully implicit schemes of finite volume method

This paper documents a novel numerical model for calculating the behavior of unsteady, one-dimensional groundwater flow by using the finite volume method. The developed model determined water table fluctuations for different scenarios as follows: Drainage and recession from an unconfined aquifer, and water table fluctuations above an inclined leaky layer due to ditch recharge with a constant and variable upper boundary condition. The Boussinesq equation, which is the governing equation in this domain, is linearized and solved numerically in both of the explicit and fully implicit conditions. Meanwhile, the upwind scheme is employed to discretize the governing equation. The computed outcomes of both the explicit and implicit approaches agreed well with the results of analytical solution and laboratory experiments. The main reason is that in the first half of simulation process explicit scheme obtains slightly better results and in the second half of the simulation process fully implicit scheme predicts more reliable outcomes that are hidden in the neighbor node points. As a final point, the numerical outcomes confirm that the developed model is capable of calculating satisfactory outcomes in engineering and science applications. © 2021 University of Kuwait. All rights reserved.