541-0048/01 – Hydrogeological Exploration Design (PHGP)

Hydrogeological facilities are one of the types of constructions that are purchased not only by organizations providing water supply for the population, but also by others interested in using their own groundwater source for both business and private purposes. With the technical development, especially drilled wells become more affordable, and with the rising price of water, the payback period of investments is significantly shortened. This leads to the expansion of drilling wells companies, and although construction and water law has shifted over the last few years towards the sustainable use of water resources, in practice there are still often not only violations of legislation in the location of wells, their design and implementation, but also significant and often to irreversible interventions in the water regime of the landscape. The aim of the course is to acquaint students with the design of collection facilities as water works, where the geological and hydrogeological conditions must be sufficiently known in the area at least to the depth level of the considered work, i.e. there must be sufficiently detailed data especially on natural hydrogeological stratification of the rock environment, geometric parameters and hydro physical properties of individual collectors and insulators, as well as the pressure conditions of groundwater bound to individual irrigated collectors.

Many years of experience in the design of hydrogeological objects shows the coexistence of two possible approaches to the design and implementation of hydrogeological objects. The first is the classical method, i.e. the building is designed and built as an exploratory hydrogeological work for the purposes of Act No. 62/1988 Coll. After verifying the yield of this work and the quality of water in it, if the use of the survey object is possible, the object will be converted into a water work in accordance with Act No. 183/2006 Coll., Or the Water Act. If the planned collection facility excavated in the first phase as an exploration work cannot be used as a waterworks, it must be disposed of or secured in accordance with geological regulations so that the results of geological work are not degraded and groundwater is not disturbed. The second type of solution is the direct projection and execution of the collection facility as a waterworks in the intentions of the building and water law, respectively. The degree of knowledge of local geological and hydrogeological conditions is therefore important for the choice of the correct procedure, which is the purpose of the institute of hydrogeological survey. Only with the knowledge of relevant hydrogeological data is it possible to design a collection facility directly as a waterworks, because the degree of risk of interconnection of individual aquifers and adverse effects on local water conditions will be acceptably low with the appropriate construction of the waterworks. If the necessary data are not available, a detailed hydrogeological survey must be carried out before the design of the drilled well as a waterworks. These works usually include not only drilling, but also a set of accompanying works such as pumping tests, regime measurement of groundwater level, laboratory analysis, etc.

HARTER, T.: Water Well Design and Construction. Regents of the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2003. HARTER, T.; ROLLINS, L.: Watersheds, Groundwater and Drinking Water: A Practical Guide. UCANR Publications, 2008. ISBN: 9781879906815 OOSTERBAAN, R. J.: Subsurface land drainage by tube wells. International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement (ILRI), Wageningen, The Netherlands, 2017. WEIGHT, W. D.: Practical Hydrogeology: Principles and Field Applications, Third Edition. McGraw-Hill Education, 2019. ISBN: 9781260116892