Implications of heterogeneity on transport simulations at large scale: the Morroa aquifer case/Implicaciones de la heterogeneidad en simulaciones de transporte de contaminantes a escala de cuencas: el caso del acuífero Morroa

The Morroa aquifer located in Sucre state (northern Colombia) represents the exclusive source of water supply for nearly 500.000 people, including the capital of the state Sincelejo. Although multiple studies have been performed in this area, and a considerable amount of data including piezometric levels, stratigraphy at wells, and pumping tests has been collected. A methodology able to account for all of the available data and integrate it in a comprehensive conceptual model represents the starting point of the investigation. To generate the realizations, two different methods were employed: the well-known Sequential Indicator method which is a semivariogram based geostatistic method; and the multiple-point geostatistics algorithm SNESIM. The results of the geostatistics simulations show the great ability of MPS to reproduce complex curve heterogeneities. Flow and transport simulations are performed using two different conceptual models of the Morroa aquifer considering heterogeneities. The result shows a considerable influence of heterogeneity and the geostatistic method used to generate the conceptual model, i.e. two-points or multiple-point geostatistics.