Unstructured Gridding for MODFLOW from Prior Groundwater Flow Models: A New Paradigm
Abstract
This work introduces a new unstructured gridding approach relying on feedback from a previous groundwater flow model. All cells in a relatively coarse model using a rectilinear grid are recursively subdivided following a cell wise specific discharge-based indicator to generate quadtree, octree or Voronoï grids. This technique leverages the full potential of the latest MODFLOW engines. The suitability of this approach is demonstrated on challenging single and multilayered heterogeneous formations. The proposed method is straightforward to implement in existing software packages. It supports iterative updating of groundwater flow models from the legacy rectilinear to unstructured grids.