Groundwater impact from excavation – Hand in

The study area is located along Robertshöjdsgatan, east of Gothenburg. Search for
Robertshöjdsgatan in google, hitta.se or eniro.se. Several new buildings are planned between
Smörslottsgatan and Robertshöjdsgatan and most of them will be founded on bedrock since
the soil cover is thin in most of the area. However, alongside Robertshöjdsgatans south end,
an underground garage is planned to solve the parking issues for the new domestic buildings.
The garage will have two floors located underground. The excavation needed is 6 meters
deep. It is estimated it will take 6-12 months to build the underground garage-walls and floor.
During that period the excavation will have to be dewatered continuously, after that the
excavation can be refilled. The garage is located under planned buildings B1 och B1 in Figure
2. The excavation for the garage will be 25x135 meters, somewhat larger than buildings B1
och B2. The excavation is located adjacent to the residential area east of Robertshöjdsgatan.
Maps and information from site investigations are given in the document Maps and
groundwater data. There is also a Ground Investigation Report from geotechnical
investigations. It is not necessary to use the Ground Investigation Report, the maps are
enough, but having a look in it could be interesting. It is in Swedish, however the text is not
very useful but the printed results from the drillings can be. You can also use the digital
mapservices from SGU at https://apps.sgu.se/kartvisare/ . Choose for example “Jordarter
1:25000 – 1:100000” for top soil, “Jorddjup” for depth to bedrock is you are interested

Figure 1 Red mark shows Robertshöjdsgatans location in relation to central Gothenburg.

Figure 2 Yellow buildings are planned. The garage is located under buildings B1 och B1 in one large excavation. It’s size is
25x135 meters, somewhat larger than B1 och B2 separately.
Groundwater impact from excavation - tasks
The goal of this part of the project assignment is to conceptualize and quantify groundwater
impacts from an excavation. This is something that always must be studied and sometimes
the planned work demands permission from Swedish Land and Environmental court. Use the
lecture material and the document “maps and groundwater data” for support and additional
indata. The document “Ground investigation report” can also be used for additional
information about the site but is not necessary to answer the questions.
In this hand in the following 5 questions shall be answered and reported in Canvas. Questions
2 and 4 are the most extensive ones. Question 6 is voluntary.

1. Groundwater impact due to the garage excavation. Why can groundwater leak into the
excavation? Even if a retaining structure is used for the excavation?

2. Conceptualization of the groundwater conditions at the site (use maps, geological maps,
topography and your knowledge on conceptualization of soil layers below surface). Try to
answer these questions in your conceptualization and please make some sketches or
pictures to show what you mean. It is OK to use material from the lecture and “maps and
groundwater data” but it does not cover everything, you need to conceptualize and make
assumptions yourself as well.
a) What groundwater aquifers are there at the site? Think especially about different soil
layers and their hydraulic conductivity, think vertically in different layers and
geographically in different types of soil and rock. Note! In this hand in we use the
word “aquifer” in a wider perspective than the definition of the word, we use it more
like “a pretty transmissive soil layer or bedrock”.
b) Where are the areas of groundwater recharge and are there any hydraulic aquifer
boundaries?
c) What could the groundwater level(s) be? There are measurements in one of the
aquifers in the “maps and groundwater data”-document but you might need to make
assumptions.
d) The excavation is complex due to very varying soil conditions and depth to bedrock,
give a sketch of how the excavation will look at different places along its length and
what possible groundwater leakage paths there are. Use the lecture presentation as
support/inspiration.
e) What groundwater aquifer(s) to you think is most likely to get a groundwater
drawdown due to the excavation works?

3. Field investigations. What field investigations would you want, i.e. what geological and
hydrogeological information do you need, to quantify the impact from the excavation on
the groundwater conditions? Don´t just copy the field investigation “ground investigation
report” given, it was not designed for this specific question only.
4. Calculation of radius of influence. Now you will make a calculation of the radius of
influence and reflections upon the result. We assume that any retaining wall has poor
water tightness and gives no reduction of groundwater inflow and that there are leaking
holes between retaining wall och bedrock, which would be the worst case and good first
estimation. I.e. we assume no sealing in our calculations.
Guidance for calculating the radius of influence with Thiem well equation and
assumptions. Use excel, Python or whatever calculation tool you like:
𝑄 𝑅
o Thiem for confined aquifer: 𝐻0 − ℎ𝑤 = 2∗𝜋∗𝑇 ∗ 𝑙𝑛 𝑟 0 where w denotes
𝑤
conditions at the well (i.e. the part of excavation with groundwater inflow in
our case) and 0 denotes undisturbed conditions.
o For simplicity, you can view the bedrock in the area as impermeable even it
that is not totally correct. Instead, focus on the confined soil aquifer (which
hopefully was your answer to question 2e )
o The part of the excavation that goes down into the aquifer can be “translated”
into a circular shape to make it possible to use well equations. An equivalent
𝑎+𝑏
well radius can be calculated as 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 = = 𝑟𝑤 where a and b are the
𝜋
sides of the portion of excavation where the groundwater inflow occurs.
o You need to decide the size of the drawdown (𝐻0 − ℎ𝑤 ) from de given
material. The size of the drawdown can be estimated with assumed excavation
depth and undisturbed groundwater level. You have to decide what
groundwater level to view as representative initial, undisturbed condition.
o You need to decide what aquifer transmissivity T (aquifer K-value * aquifer
thickness) to use. Have a look in “maps and groundwater data”-document.
o Now you have two unknown parameters and only one equation! Both radius of
influence 𝑅0 and inflow 𝑄 … How to fix that? You can make a water balance
equation that says that the inflow 𝑄 shall be balanced (equal to) the total
groundwater recharge within the area of influence. If your area of influence is
circular (as assumed with well equations), the 𝑄 from groundwater recharge is
given by 𝑄 = 𝑊 ∗ (𝑅02 ∗ 𝜋), where 𝑊 denotes the available effective
precipitation for infiltration och percolation to the groundwater aquifer. 𝑊 is
always uncertain, good precipitation data can be found but the difficult part is
how much of it that can enter the aquifer. Our aquifer is confined, which limits
the groundwater recharge to the open parts along the border of the aquifer.
So choosing W is not easy but in this task you can use 100 mm/year (transform
it to m/s of course) as an assumption.
o If you have arguments for other sizes of groundwater recharge, you are free to
use them and motivate your choice. You can always make a simple sensitivity
analysis of the parameter to see if it seems to affect the result a lot or not.
a. What is your resulting radius of influence?
b. Does it seem reasonable compared to the geology and the extents of the aquifer?
Make a picture/map to show the excavation and the radius of influence.
 c. Discuss what parameter uncertainties and model uncertainties (i.e. how the Thiem
equation fits to the actual conditions) there are in your calculation result and how
those uncertainties might affect the result.
d. How could you reduce model uncertainties and reduce parameter uncertainties?
e. Would you suggest performing more refined estimations of the radius of influence?
How?

5. The legal aspects and risks of damage need to be considered as well:

a) Could the project harm other interest and objects in the area to due groundwater
lowering? Give examples and explain why.
b) Could the project need a legal permission? Motivate your answer.
c) Do you recommend more investigations, and in that case what kind of investigations?
d) Do you recommend the client to take countermeasures to reduce the groundwater
inleakage? What could such measures to reduce negative groundwater impact be?
e) Based on your estimated radius of influence and risks in questions above, do you think
it is worth the money to do more investigations (quite expensive) and/or to take
countermeasures (sealing, infiltration etc - very expensive) to reduce the groundwater
impact?

6. Voluntary: What is your opinion about this hand in? The answer will not affect whether
you pass or not!