Estimation of Hydraulic Parameters of Confined Aquifers by Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm

Groundwater modeling is essential in aquifer management and planning. Determination of hydraulic parameters in aquifer plays a key role in groundwater modeling, therefore choosing a suitable method for determination these parameters is very important. So far, various methods have been developed to estimate hydraulic parameters of aquifers using in situ pump test measurments. In this research, Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm (AFSA) was evaluated for estimation of the hydraulic conductivity and storage coefficient parameters in three confined aquifers, using graphic method and Genetic Algorithm (GA). AFSA is one of the algorithms inspired both from the nature and swarm intelligence algorithms. The results obtained by AFSA, graphic method and GA were compared and it was found that the AFSA similar to GA is a proper method for estimation of aquifer hydraulic coefficients and it has a better performace as compared to the graphic method. As, AFSA is not sensitive to initial values of decision variables, it could be useful for estimation parameters of aquifers in which geological characteristics are unknown.