Models and methods for predicting hydraulic conductivity in near-surface unconsolidated sediments using nuclear magnetic resonance

What is it about?

We use several statistical tools to measure how well hydraulic conductivity can be predicted using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements. We focus on borehole NMR but the methods are applicable to any setting where a model is used to relate NMR decay times such as T2 to hydraulic conductivity K. We find that such measurements have an accuracy of about an order of magnitude in predicting K.

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Why is it important?

In-situ hydraulic conductivity (K) measurements can be difficult to obtain, while NMR measurements are comparatively easy to make. We provide a systematic approach to quantifying uncertainty of the parameters used for predicting K from NMR measurements, which means that future researchers now have a set of tools to use for understanding both of how well a given model works and can determine what spatial variations in K are required by the data.