A new analytical solution of tidal water table fluctuations in a coastal unconfined aquifer

SummaryThis paper presents a new perturbation solution of the non-linear Boussinesq equation for one-dimensional tidal groundwater flow in a coastal unconfined aquifer. Built upon the work of Parlange et al. [Parlange, J.-Y., Stagnitti, F., Starr, J.L., Braddock, R.D., 1984. Free-surface flow in porous media and periodic solution of the shallow-flow approximation, J. Hydrol., 70, 251–263], the solution adopts a new perturbation parameter that is by definition less than unit, and thus is applicable to a wider range of physical conditions within the constraint of the Boussinesq approximation. This approach avoids a secular term in the third-order perturbation equation of Parlange et al. (1984), enabling the derivation of the third- and higher-order solutions. In comparison with a numerical (“exact”) solution, the new perturbation solution is shown to be slightly more accurate than that of Parlange et al. (1984) with the second-order approximation. The obtained third-order solution exhibits considerable improvement in accuracy. In relatively simple analytical forms, the present perturbation solution will help to understand better the non-linear characteristics of tidal water table fluctuations in as modeled by the non-linear Boussinesq equation coastal unconfined aquifers.