Estimation of the sustainable yield of a borehole including boundary information, drawdown derivatives and uncertainty propagation

A new method, the Flow Characteristic (FC) method, is presented which enables the clear characterization of flow regimes by the use of drawdown derivative information. Boundaries are accounted for with semi-analytical formulae. This approach does not require the fitting of the drawdown curve by a model. Parameter uncertainties in late time T and S values and in the distances to the boundaries are included in the analysis by applying Gaussian Error Propagation to the extrapolation of the long time drawdown curve. The FC method is verified by its successful application to a synthetically generated case study.