Consideration for unsaturated flow beneath a streambed during alluvial well depletion

Unsaturated flow transforms streams from constant head boundaries to constant flux boundaries, impacting the quantity of stream recharge to groundwater. The objective of this research was to analyze the impact of unsaturated flow on stream/aquifer exchange by incorporating a three-regime, saturated/unsaturated flow, stream recharge model into MODFLOW, the most commonly used numerical flow model in ground water hydrology. This three-regime model extends prior research by accounting for a transition regime between fully saturated and gravity-driven unsaturated flow. Accounting for unsaturated flow between a stream and aquifer is necessary to adequately simulate stream depletion. Sensitivity analyses of steady stream recharge versus drawdown demonstrated that the transition regime became more important for cases with small stream stages, smaller streambed thicknesses, and larger entry pressure heads. Based on coarse sand and fine sand hypothetical scenarios, the transition regime in the proposed three-regime model could generally be neglected with minor error for most stream/aquifer scenarios. However, the transition regime became important when: (1) the drawdown stabilized near the range of drawdowns that represented the transition regime; and (2) there must be a significant difference (i.e., 0.2 m) in the entry and ultimate capillary pressure heads, which occurred with larger entry pressure heads (i.e., equal to or greater than 1.0 m) and a smaller pore size distribution index (i.e., approximately 1.0).