ABSTRACTS In Red River Delta, there are many important economic regions located on the coastal areas. The growth of both the economy and the population in these areas during the last decades, which is based on the availability of water resources, and the extensive exploitation have strongly increased the pressure on this finite and vulnerable resource. Since surface water is unevenly distributed and increasingly affected by human activities, groundwater has become the major source of potable water. This thesis therefore focused on contributing to the improvement of groundwater management in RRD by determining groundwater safe yield using modelling method.
Nam Dinh Province was selected to be the study area. In the northern areas of Nam Dinh Province, due to the the high concentration of contamination in the groundwater aquifers, surface water is used as the main source of water for the region. Groundwater usage in these areas is mainly for other purposes than domestic use. Small scale groundwater extraction can be found near the main rivers with shallow wells in the uppermost aquifer due to the high level of contamination.
Deeper aquifers are the main subject for extensive extraction in the province. Significant extractions are found in the south of Nam Dinh, where large freshwater lens in Pleistocene aquifer are located. Therefore in this thesis, the Pleistocene aquifer is the main area of interest. It was decided to use the Visual MODFLOW for the setting up of a numerical model of the Nam Dinh Area.
The 3D hydrogeological structure for the model was created from strata data of 83 boreholes, including 27 boreholes from Nam Dinh, 15 boreholes from Ha Nam, 17 boreholes from Ninh Binh, 23 boreholes from Thai Binh and | from Thanh Hoa. Natural neighbors method was used to interpolate the elevation of surface and bottom of the layers. The 3D structural model was built with 5 layers, representing 4 aquifers and 1 aquitard, including Upper Holocene aquifer (qh2), Lower Holocene aquifer (gh1), Pleistocene aquitard (qp2), Pleistocene aquifer (qpl) and Neogen aquifer (n) with the order from top to botlom respectively. The finite difference grid used for the model has the size of 181 x 160 (181 columns x 160 rows, the size of each cell is approximate 400m x 400m).
Observed water heads from 19 wells were used to calibrate and verify the model. The normalize root mean squared of the calibrated model is 6.296%, which is considered to be good enough to simulate the future uses of groundwater for the study area ‘To show the impacts of groundwater utilization on the qp aquifer in Nam Dinh Province, enarios of future situations were simulated using the calibrated model Extraction rates were extrapolated until 2050 and three versions were considered: 1) Extraction rises constantly until 2050 in the same manner than from 1994 to 2012; 2) Extraction stays on a 2012 level, which means that no additional water is going to be extracted; 3) Extraction gradually declines to 0 by 2050. ‘The simulation results of these scenarios were used to estimate the groundwater safe yield for Nam Dinh Province. It showed that the safe yield for the area is estimated to be 70300 m'/day DECLARATION 1 hereby certify that the work which is being presented in this thesis entitled, ‘Numerical simulation for the assessment of groundwater safe yield in Red iver Delta, Viet Nam” in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the Master of Science in Integrated Water Resource Management, is an authentic record of my own work carried out under supervision of Associate Professor Dr.
Vu Minh Cat and Dr. Bui Du Duong. ‘The matter embodied in this thesis has not been submitted by me for the award of any other degrees or diplomas, Date: 28 November 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEM NTS This thesis was completed at Faculty of Water Resources Engineering, Thuy Loi University. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Assoc.
Vu Minh Cat for his invaluable guidance. Ï am deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to learn from his knowledge. 1 would like to thank Dr. Bui Du Duong for his helpful contribution to the hydrogeology field and his supervision of my study.
Tam very grateful to Assoc. Pham Quy Nhan, MSe, Dang Tran Trung and MSc. Tran Thanh Le for their valuable advices and help with the preparation of spreadsheet data for the boreholes and well logs. Mariette van Tilburg, I am very thankful for the English corrections, suggestions for my thesis and for providing me useful writing resources.
Lastly, a word of thanks is extended (o NICHE-VNM-106 project team for providing a 18 months MSc scholarship. Again, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for all these valuable help! TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF FIGURES. LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER I — INTRODUCTION 4 Background information 1 Objective & scope of study 1. Previous studies & state of knowledge 13.
Structure of thesis CHAPTER II - CHARACTERISTICS OF NAM DINH PROVINCE 2.1, Physical settings of Nam Dinh Province 2.14, Surface water bodies 2. Soils and land use 2.6, Population & Socio-Eeonomy 2.7, Water supply and groundwater utilization 2. Geological characteristics of study area 2.1, Structural characte ties 2. Groundwater salinity 4 CHAPTER II - CONSTRUCTION OF NUMERICAL MODEL TO ASSESS GROUNDWATER SAFE YIELD IN NAM DINH PROVINCE 44 3.1, Introduction of MODFLOW model 44 3.1, Construction of 3D structural model 47 3.3, Model calibration 0 CHAPTER IV ~ SIMULATED RESULTS AND RECOMMI 66 4.1, Extraction rises constantly 66 4.
Extraction remains constant 67 4. Extraction gradually reduces 6 4.4, Estimation of groundwater safe yield 70 4.2, Discussion of model results 72 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 74 REFERENCES 16 APPENDICES 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Generral abbreviations MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment NAWAPL National Center for Water Resources Planning and Investigation NDWRPI Nonhem Division of the National Center for Water Resources Planning and Investigation N,S.E,W North, South, East, West RRD Red River Delta UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund ‘Technical abbraviations mbgl Meter below ground level man Meter above modem sea level ‘TDs otal dissolved solids (mg/L) LIST OF FIGURES.1; Steps of study, 19 Figure 2.1: The outline map of Nam Dinh Province 21 Figure 22: Monthly averaged data for temperature, precipitation and potential evaporation in period from 1959 to 2007, measured at Van Ly station, coastal area of Nam Dịnh.3: Land use distribution in Nam Dinh province, status 2007, 35 Figure 2.4: Bar chart showing official data for communal and private water supply (ws) in Nam Dinh from 2005 to 2009 27 Figure 2.5: Quaternary geology and topography of the Red River delta and adjacent areas (Source: Tanabe et al.6: Geological Sketch map including major struct features and basis boundarie ofthe Holocene, Pleistocene and Neogene sediments (Source: NAWAPD.7: Sketch map showing location (orange line) of typical hydrogeoloại ‘ross section of Nam Dinh Province.8: Cross section from Vu Ban to Hai Hau (140x vertical exaggeration, modified after Hoe et al., 2003) 31 Figure 29: Time-series of monthly averaged Groundwater level of Holocene (gh), Pleistocene (qp) and Neogene (n) aquifers.10: Contour map ofthe hydraulic groundwater heads (m asl) in Pleistocene (qpl) aquifer in the Nam Dinh province in May 2010 (eft) and November 2010 (right) (Source: NDWRPD, 41 Figure 2.11: Salinity distribution map (TDS) in qp pore water.1: Three-dimensiomal finite difference grid used in MODFLOW.2: Sketch map showing locations of boreholes used to construct the 3D structural model 48 te 3.3: Finite difference grid and extent border of the model.4: 3D hydrogeological structure of Nam Dinh Province 49 9 Figure 3.5: Sketch map showing bottom elevation contours of Š layers: a) Upper Holocene aquifer, b) Lower Holocene aquifer, e) Pleistocene aquitard, 6) Pleistocene aquifer, e) Neogen aquifer 52 Figure 3.6: Hydraulic conductivity (m/day) for each aquifer: a) Upper Holocene, b) Lower Holocene, c) Upper Pleistocene, đ) Lower Pleistoce! €) Neogene 3 Figure 3.7: Distribution of aificial well locations in study area sẽ Figure 3.8: Estimated groundwater withdrawal rat from 1994 to 2009 in Nam Dinh Province.9: Sketch map showing the locatio of groundwater monitoring wells in Nam Dinh Province 6 Figure 3.10: Calculated versus measured water heads in Q108, 109 and 110.11: Best fit simulation water level contour in qp aquifer (December 2012) 63 Figure 3.12: Calibration residuals histogram 63 ‘igure 3.13: Calculated versus measured water heads in Q221-Q229 from 2010 to 2012.14: Scattered plot showing the relation between calculated and observed head 65 Figure 4.1: Estimated groundwater level until 2050 at Q109 with a constant rise of extraction as postulated until 2012.2: Sketch map showing the groundwater level contour in qp aquifer in December 2050 with a constant rise of extraction as postulated until2012.3 stimated groundwater level until 2050 at Q109 with a constant level of extraction as in 2012 68 Figure 4.4: Sketch map showing the groundwater level contour in qp aquifer in December 2050 with a constant level of extraction as 2012 68 Figure 4.5: Bstimated groundwater level until 2050 at Q109 with a constant decline of extraction, 69 10 Figure 4.6: Sketch map showing the groundwater level contour in qp aquifer in December 2050 with a constant decline of extraction 70 Figure 4.7: Estimated groundwater level until 2050 at Q109 in different scenario.72 " LIST OF TABLES ‘Table 2.1: Stratigraphy and Hydrostratigraphy ofthe strata in the Nam Dinh area, 32 ‘Table 3.1: Amount of water wells in Nam Dinh in 1999 and 2009 sr ible 3.2: Table for statistic parameters of calibrated model result 65 ‘Table 4.1: Estimated safe pumping rate in Nam Dinh Province. n CHAPTER I~INTRODUC' ION 1. Background information In Red River Delta, there are many important economic regions located on the coastal areas.
The growth of both the economy and the population in these areas during the last decades, which is based on the availability of water resources, and the extensive exploitation have strongly increased the pressure on this finite and vulnerable resource, Since surface water is unevenly distributed and increasingly affected by human activities, groundwater has become the major source of potable water" Understanding and quantifying groundwater resources, especially in coastal areas, is a very complex and difficult task, considerably more problematic and uncertain than surface water hydrology. Various studies have been conducted using điiferent types of models, including empirical, probabilistic and deterministic models, Since empirical models are limited in scope and probabil ie. models require large data sets and cannot be used to solve many problems in practice (e.g effects of a future pumping) ''”, numerical deterministic models are increasingly applied, especially within GIS environments. However, in contrast to the developed ‘countries (e., Europe, Australia, Japan, and North America), where a vast majority of projects ave been carried out due to the availability of a wide range of information and where technical and financial resources are available“), few projects have been in Viet Nam with very limited results.
This has led tô an inadequate understanding of the aquifer system characteristics as well as to unwise groundwater management in Viet Nam, especially in RRD. ‘This thesis therefore focused on contributing to the improvement of groundwater management in RRD by determining groundwater safe yield using modelling method, However, within the limited time, it is not feasible to construct the model for the whole Delta. In this study, Nam Dinh Province was selected to be the case study. There are 3 reasons for this selection: 13 © Nam Dinh province is located in the south of the Red River flood plain.