The Greene County Board of Commissioners, as represented by the Greene County Sanitary Engineering Department (GCSED), local cities and townships (i.e. stakeholders) are working together to plan and manage the groundwater resources of the upper Little Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer (LMRBVA). The stakeholders prepared a Water Resources Management Plan that includes preparing estimates for the quantity of water or sustainable yield of the LMRBVA within Greene County. As part of this effort, the interdependence of existing and proposed well fields within the study area was completed through the use of a watershed computer model capable of simulating both groundwater and stream flow interactions. Terran assisted through the preparation, calibration and simulation of the LMRBVA using MODFLOW, MODPATH and ZONEBUDGET model and modules. An estimate of aquifer sustainability was developed from the model based on production demand of five municipal well fields, with imposed limits such as screen saturation and stream water base flow for the Little Miami River.

Conceptual cross section of vertical model domain to simulate LMRBVA.

Summary of Annual Water Budget for LMRBVA Study Area.

The BVA model domain was subdivided into zones using based on their pumping zones of influence, to determine well field hydrologic water budgets. The well field budgets were used to quantify the volume of water recharging the wells from sources such as precipitation, stream flow and groundwater.

The upper limits of sustainable yield were evaluated for the aquifer by increasing the production capacity of the well fields by 2-fold and 3-fold of their respective current production rates. The study provided quantitative estimates of the upper limits each well field can expect to pump for future management purposes.

Terran presented the results of the study to the Stakeholders, the Greene County Commissioners and the general public through mixed media.

If Terran can assist in your water resource management efforts, please contact us at (937) 320-3601 to discuss your project requirements.

More examples of Terran Corporation’s modeling projects:

• Arsenic and Chloride Fate and Transport Modeling for Water Supply Permitting.
• Hydrogeologic Evaluation for Wellfield Development.
• Aquifer Evaluation and Ground Water Modeling for a New Water Supply.
• Well Head Protection Area Study.
• Substructure Flooding Potential.
• Construction Dewatering Study.
• Computer Modeling of Phytoremediation for Corrective Action Evaluation.