A sparse Bayesian framework for conditioning uncertain geologic models to nonlinear flow measurements

We present a Bayesian framework for reconstructing hydraulic properties of rock formations from nonlinear dynamic flow data by imposing sparsity on the distribution of the parameters in a sparse transform basis through Laplace prior distribution. Sparse representation of the subsurface flow properties in a compression transform basis (where a compact representation is often possible) lends itself to a natural regularization approach, i.e. sparsity regularization, which has recently been exploited in solving ill-posed subsurface flow inverse problems. The Bayesian estimation approach presented here allows for a probabilistic treatment of the sparse reconstruction problem and has its roots in machine learning and the recently introduced relevance vector machine algorithm for linear inverse problems. We formulate the Bayesian sparse reconstruction algorithm and apply it to nonlinear subsurface inverse problems where solution sparsity in a discrete cosine transform is assumed. The probabilistic description of solution sparsity, as opposed to deterministic regularization, allows for quantification of the estimation uncertainty and avoids the need for specifying a regularization parameter. Several numerical experiments from multiphase subsurface flow application are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed method and compare it with the regular Bayesian estimation approach that does not impose solution sparsity. While the examples are derived from subsurface flow modeling, the proposed framework can be applied to nonlinear inverse problems in other imaging applications including geophysical and medical imaging and electromagnetic inverse problem.