Radial basis function-finite difference method for groundwater flow equations in a confined aquifersystem

Studying groundwater response to tidal fluctuations in coastal waters is important for various environmental and engineering applications. Researchers have derived oneand two-dimensional partial differential equations to model groundwater fluctuations in both non-leaky and leaky confined aquifer systems adjacent to open tidal waters. This paper presents an innovative and effective framework based on the Radial Basis Function-Finite Difference approach (RBF-FD) to solve one- and two-dimensional groundwater flow equations in both confined and leaky aquifer systems. The effect on groundwater head and leakage in both types of aquifers were subjected to tidal boundaries. A convergence analysis of the numerical solution was performed to validate the obtained results. The results showed that the RBF-FD approach is computationally efficient and can obtain high-order accuracy.