Temperature data assimilation for hyporheic exchange: numerical studies and sandbox experiments

Due to the temperature difference between groundwater and surface water (GW-SW), heat can be used as an ideal tracer in hyporheic zone. To quantify GW-SW interactions, existing methods are mainly based on the analytical solution of one-dimensional heat transport equation. However, the assumptions therein are usually violated in practical applications. Furthermore, there are relatively limited experimental sandbox studies regarding heat tracer for complicated GW-SW interactions. In this study, we developed a data assimilation method to quantify the GW-SW interaction in the presence of heterogeneous river bed. A numerical simulator was used to solve the groundwater and heat transport equation. Then the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) was employed to assimilate the temperature data to quantify the unknown interactions (velocity field) between GW-SW and heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity field. The validity of this method was verified by both numerical simulation and sandbox experiment for different scenarios.