The objectives of this research are to develop new inverse solution procedures for the identification of stochastic parameters, and to integrate the developed procedures with experimental design and reliability analysis for the modeling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. The experimental design problem includes the determination of sampling strategies for the purposes of parameter identification and model prediction. The parameters to be identified include the hydraulic as well as transport parameters embedded in the governing equations. Model parameters are identified using observations of flow and transport under a transient condition as well as the available point estimates of hydraulic conductivity. A criterion will be established for the optimization of the experimental design, such that different sampling strategies can be compared and optimized.
