Abstract:
The partial differential equations for water flow and solute transport in a two-
dimensional saturated domain are rendered discrete using the finite difference technique;
the resulting system of algebraic equations
is solved using a dynamic programming (DP)
method. The advantage of the
DP algorithm is that the prob
lem is converted from solving
an algebraic system of order NC(NL-1)
×
NC(NL-1) into one of solving a difference equa-
tion of order NC
×
NC over NL-1 steps and involving NL-1 matrix inversions of order
NC
×
NC. The accuracy and precision of the solutions are shown by comparing the results
with an analytical solution and calculation of
mass the balance. In addition, the perform-
ance of the DP model was compared with the results of the MOC model developed by US
Geological Survey. In all case
s, the DP model showed good
results with su
fficient accu-
racy
