Abstract
Understanding of the groundwater (GW)-surface water (SW) interaction is
essential for the both qualitative and quantitative determination of the
exchanging flux between them. The commonly used conductance-based
approach, which linearly relates the flux with the streambed
conductance, avoids the inclusion of aquifer properties in the flux
quantification. In this approach, aquifer properties are solely
represented by a hydraulic head below the streambed. Applying an
analytical approach to a superimposed GW-SW system, this work finds that
the exchanging flux rather follows a nonlinear behaviour when aquifer
properties are part of flux quantification. The developed approach is
found to match the numerical results obtained from synthetic data. The
study further provides approaches for simpler quantification of
geometrical and hydraulic properties of the streambed and the aquifer.