Watertable fluctuations in coastal unconfined aquifers with a sloping sea boundary: Vertical flow and dynamic effective porosity effects

Interactions between the tide and sloping sea boundary make watertable fluctuations in coastal unconfined aquifers complicated. Based on a perturbation method, we derived a new analytical solution to predict watertable fluctuations for coastal unconfined aquifers with a sloping sea boundary. Following validation with a numerical model, the analytical solution was used to explore the effects of the vertical flow (in the saturated zone) and dynamic effective porosity on watertable fluctuations. Results show that the new analytical solution accurately predicts watertable fluctuations for coastal unconfined aquifers with a sloping sea boundary. Compared with sand coastal unconfined aquifers, both vertical flow and dynamic effective porosity effects on watertable fluctuations are more pronounced for loam coastal unconfined aquifers. Vertical flow has a minor influence on the fluctuation amplitude while it significantly decreases the phase lag of the watertable fluctuation at a given location. In contrast to vertical flow, accounting for the dynamic effective porosity not only decreases the phase lag, but also significantly amplifies the fluctuation amplitude for a given location, which enables watertable wave propagation further inland. Increasing the beach slope weakens the effects of the vertical flow and dynamic effective porosity on watertable fluctuations. Furthermore, including either the vertical flow or dynamic effective porosity effects leads to a lower watertable overheight. These results highlight the importance of vertical flow and dynamic effective porosity effects in models of watertable fluctuations.