Capillary Impact on Tidal Response of Groundwater in Unconfined Aquifers With Finite Thickness, Anisotropy and Wellbore Storage—An Analytical Model

This study develops a novel, two‐dimensional analytical model to study capillary effects on Earth tidal responses of groundwater in unconfined aquifers. It differs from the previous model by accounting for effects of finite aquifer thickness, anisotropy and wellbore storage. We test the present model against the previous model and numerical simulations and apply it to the field data. Several significant results are obtained: (a) At high conductivity (Kr>10−5 ${K}_{r} > {10}^{-5}$ m/s), the effect of capillary zones dominates tidal responses of groundwater and causes higher amplitude ratio and smaller phase shift compared with that predicted by the unconfined aquifer model without a capillary zone. At low conductivity (Kr 1$), however, the amplitude ratio decreases and the phase shift increases, and the response differs substantially from that of the previous model, which is caused by a change in the flow pattern. (c) Wellbore storage have significant impacts on the tidal response at low conductivity (Kr< ${K}_{r}< $ 10−5 m/s) but negligible impact at higher conductivity. (d) The present model marginally improved the fit by the half‐space model to the field data from a well in SW China, showing that the remaining misfit to the field data by models with capillarity cannot be due to finite aquifer thickness, anisotropy, or wellbore storage. Key Points At relatively high aquifer conductivity, effects of capillary zones dominate tidal responses of groundwater in unconfined aquifers At relatively low aquifer conductivity, effects of wellbore storage and screen length dominate tidal responses in unconfined aquifers At a given aquifer thickness, higher vertical conductivity leads to smaller amplitude ratio and greater phase shift