A well capture zone is an area within an aquifer that delineates groundwater that will ultimately reach the well. In a contaminated aquifer, contamination within the capture zone will ultimately reach the well. The regional groundwater flow is directed in the along the x-axis under the hydraulic gradient i.
The catchment area of an ideal pumping well, situated at the coordinates (0,0) can be characterized by:
the culmination point and the maximum width of the capture zone:
Q=pumping rate, K=hydraulic conductivity, i=hydrauic gradient, b=aquifer thickness
each point of the flow divide can be calculated as:
This interactive tool calculates the capture area for a pumping well in a confined, homogeneous, and isotropic aquifer with the following properties entered by the user.
hydraulic conductivity K (in meters per second)
pumping rate Q (in cubic meters per second)
regional hydraulic gradient of groundwater flow i
aquifer thickness b (in meters)
Additional inputs allow the user to reformat the graph. The calculated values of the culmination point and the width of the capture zone are printed below the graph. The input table, graph, and results are illustrated below.