A parallel scientific software for heterogeneous hydrogeoloy

Numerical modelling is an important key for the management and remediation of groundwater resources. As opposed to surface water and to highly karstic geologies, groundwater does not flow in well-identified open streams but is like water flowing in the voids of a sponge. Several field experiments show that the natural geological formations are highly heterogeneous, leading to preferential flow paths and stagnant regions. Transport of contaminant by advection and dispersion induce a large spreading of the particles generally called plume. The characterization of the plume remains a much debated topic [6,9,10]. Because data give a rather scarce description of the medium hydraulic properties, predictions rely heavily on numerical modelling. Numerical modelling should integrate the multi-scale geological heterogeneity, simulate the hydraulic flow and transport phenomena and quantify uncertainty coming from the lack of data. High performance computing is necessary to carry out these large scale simulations. In this paper, we describe the scientific platform HYDROLAB, which integrates in a modular structure physical models and numerical methods for simulating flow and transport in heterogeneous porous and fractured media.