Effects of outcrop-scale structural and diagenetic heterogeneities on flow and mass transport in a porous sandstone aquifer

We apply outcrop-based structural and in-situ petrophysical properties measurements for the construction of flow and mass transport calibrated numerical models in a porous sandstone aquifer. The hydraulic conductivity in this aquifer is influenced by the presence of deformation bands and related carbonate nodules. These heterogeneities are shown to decrease the hydraulic conductivity of the host rock by 2–3 orders of magnitude. The result obtained is robust, given that the models were calibrated with hydrologic field data. Our upscaling methodology for hydraulic conductivity allows inclusion of outcrop-scale structures and diagenetic features by means of inversion of the advective velocity for conservative particles. This approach can be used for easily implementing field data in aquifers or other geofluids reservoir simulators. Our experiments show that the use of an equivalent isotropic hydraulic conductivity approach fails to correctly account for mass transport in porous sandstone aquifers and we recommend implementing, as much as possible, the local heterogeneities and anisotropies in hydraulic conductivity within the model to be able to have a more realistic and conservative estimate of advection and dispersion. Our findings should be helpful to those scientists dealing with geofluids modeling and groundwater pollution. • Diagenetic–structural heterogeneities in aquifers decrease hydraulic conductivity (K) by 2–3 orders of magnitude. • The numerical flow model containing K heterogeneities is calibrated with field water level data. • An upscaling methodology from in-situ data for K in porous sandstone aquifer is presented. • Dispersion of mass transport caused by deformation bands and nodules is for the first time evaluated. • Our method may be used for implementing field data in geofluid reservoir simulators.