Characterization of Aquifer Multiscale Properties by Generating Random Fractal Field with Truncated Power Variogram Model Using Karhunen–Loève Expansion

Abstract

The traditional geostatistics to describe the spatial variation of hydrogeological properties is based on the assumption of stationarity or statistical homogeneity. However, growing evidences show and it has been widely recognized that the spatial distribution of many hydrogeological properties can be characterized as random fractals with multiscale feature, and spatial variation can be described by power variogram model. It is difficult to generate a multiscale random fractal field by directly using nonstationary power variogram model due to the lack of explicit covariance function. Here we adopt the stationary truncated power variogram model to avoid this difficulty and generate the multiscale random fractal field using Karhunen–Loève (KL) expansion. The results show that either the unconditional or conditional (on measurements) multiscale random fractal field can be generated by using truncated power variogram model and KL expansion when the upper limit of the integral scale is sufficiently large, and the main structure of the spatial variation can be described by using only the first few dominant KL expansion terms associated with large eigenvalues. The latter provides a foundation to perform dimensionality reduction and saves computational effort when analyzing the stochastic flow and transport problems.