An efficient numerical model for hydrodynamic parameterization in 2D fractured dual-porosity media

•We develop a complete algorithm for the parameterization in 2D fractured dual media.•The parameterization algorithm is based on the refinement indicators.•We use adjoint state method for the calculation of the local gradients.•We study robustness of the developed algorithm using several numerical experiments.•Algorithm provides a good parameterization even in critical cases.

This paper presents a robust and efficient numerical model for the parameterization of the hydrodynamic in fractured porous media. The developed model is based upon the refinement indicators algorithm for adaptive multi-scale parameterization. For each level of refinement, the Levenberg–Marquardt method is used to minimize the difference between the measured and predicted data that are obtained by solving the direct problem with the mixed finite element method. Sensitivities of state variables with respect to the parameters are calculated by the sensitivity method. The adjoint-state method is used to calculate the local gradients of the objective function necessary for the computation of the refinement indicators. Validity and efficiency of the proposed model are demonstrated by means of several numerical experiments. The developed numerical model provides encouraging results, even for noisy data and/or with a reduced number of measured heads.