Calculation of groundwater yield of multiple seepage wells in the Yellow River Valley

This study investigates the problems of small areas of the River Valley in the middle reaches of Yellow River, thinness of Quaternary system and small water yield of conventional vertical wells. The Yellow River Valley at Mutouyu Village of Jia County in Shaanxi Province is selected as the research area in this paper, and method for exploitation of groundwater of multiple seepage wells in this area is proposed. By taking the exchange flow rate between aquifers and seepage wells as the coupling point, the coupled seepage-pipe flow model is established for the simultaneous computation of multiple seepage wells with irregular distribution of multiple radiate bores. By adopting the 3D groundwater flow finite difference method, the water yields are computed for different scenarios which include multiple seepage wells working simultaneously during the normal season and dry season, and the interference between adjacent wells is also studied. Based on this, it is recommended that the exploitation scheme where 3 seepage wells are adopted in the study area is appropriate, according to which the water yield in normal season is 43000m³/d, while that in dry season is 28600m³/d. The results show that seepage wells and other non-tube well collection structure are of great significance to water supply in this area.