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groundwater flow

hydrology

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calculated by Darcy’s law

  • In Darcy’s law

    …Henri Darcy that governs the flow of groundwater through granular media or the flow of other fluids through permeable material, such as petroleum through sandstone or limestone. As the basic relationship from which many sophisticated theoretical and practical derivations have been devised, it has become the foundation for quantitative work…

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hydrosphere

  • Earth's environmental spheres
    In hydrosphere: Groundwaters and river runoff

    Groundwater flow provides the base flow component of streams that sustains their flow between storms. The “flashy” response of streamflow to individual precipitation events may be ascribed to either subsurface storm flow or overland flow. Under intense rainfall events during which the surface soil layer…

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Quick Facts
Born:
Aug. 7, 1852, Vienna [Austria]
Died:
Oct. 2, 1933, Vienna (aged 81)
Subjects Of Study:
groundwater flow

Philipp Forchheimer (born Aug. 7, 1852, Vienna [Austria]—died Oct. 2, 1933, Vienna) was an Austrian hydraulic engineer, one of the most significant contributors to the study of groundwater hydrology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He showed that many of the standard techniques of mathematical physics could be applied to problems of groundwater movement, establishing this subject on a firm scientific basis.

Forchheimer’s chief contribution was the application of Laplace’s equation to the phenomena of groundwater flow. Because the equation already had been thoroughly studied in relation to the phenomena of heat flow and fluid flow, a whole body of preexisting mathematical theory became available for the solution of problems of groundwater flow. See also Laplace’s equation.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.