Geostatistics allows getting relevant geological and groundwater models and assessing vulnerability to natural hazards. Modeling the subsurface is of increasing importance for numerous issues: geotechnical needs, groundwater modeling, water resource estimation, assessment of the vulnerability to natural hazards, etc..
Whatever your need is, geostatistics provides relevant methods to properly map your target variables and quantify the uncertainties related to their estimation.
HYDROGEOLOGY MAPPING
The geostatistical mapping algorithm, called kriging, is based on the specific behavior of the phenomenon via a spatial correlation function calculated from the sample measurements. Because this correlation function determines the shape of the final map, the geostatistical algorithm adapts itself directly to the spatial characteristics of your groundwater properties. Through the modeling of the spatial behavior, kriging enables to produce accurate maps together with their related uncertainties.
Key applications:
- Monitoring network optimization to reduce maintenance costs without hampering the prediction quality.
- Modeling of aquifer properties (i.e. permeability, porosity) and geometry, hydraulic heads.
- Water pollution estimation, together with its uncertainty.
SAMPLING OPTIMIZATION
The probabilistic framework of geostatistics enables the calculation of different uncertainty indices such as the estimation variance or confidence intervals related to the estimate of the target variable. Therefore, it is possible to tune additional sample locations to reduce specific uncertainty criteria. In the case of the estimation variance, as this one only depends on the spatial structure and the data configuration, additional samples will be located in under-sampled areas. Points located to reduce confidence intervals around kriging estimates will be expected to be in areas with high variability.
NATURAL HAZARD ASSESSMENT
Geostatistics allows taking into account multiple data sources in order to quantify the vulnerability to natural hazards: flooding, soil and geotechnical stability, etc. It can be used to create facies models for the subsurface and populate them with geological properties in order to assess the soil stability.
COMMUNICATION MEDIA UPDATING
Because your data can be collected automatically at regular time intervals, it is possible to generate maps in real-time using Isatis scripting procedures. A set of calculations is stored, as well as the input data and parameters. The entire workflow is then replayed. This powerful tool can be used to produce updated maps for communication via the internet.