Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

Fall 2000

Abstract

Fernley, Nevada is an agricultural community located 56 km east of Reno in the Truckee River basin. The subsurface hydrologic system in the Fernley area is driven by infiltration of irrigation water and leakage from the Truckee Canal, a diversion of the Truckee River. The return flow to the river from these sources is thought to contribute to excessive solute loading in the river. The Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno is constructing a groundwater flow and transport model to quantify the magnitude of solute loading and the effectiveness of proposed land use changes in mitigating the problem. The model described in the paper is based on the mixing cell concept. The purposes of this model are to quantify the subsurface flow system in Fernley, estimate recharge, estimate aquifer parameters (K, T), investigate the effect of geologic structures on subsurface flow, and provide a validation tool for the digital flow model.

Keywords

Fernley, Nevada, groundwater flow, transport model, solute loading, subsurface flow, mixing cell model

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