ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The ability to predict groundwater fluxes with minimum efforts and measurements is an important objective. Numerical modeling is one approach to obtain such prediction. Predictions of groundwater fluxes can be used to determine fluxes of other materials such as salts and nutrients. In this paper an analytical model is developed to predict the flow of groundwater from mangrove forest to the creek. The model uses the geometry and hydraulic conductivity of the mangrove forest sediment, which is inundated by tidal water from day zero to day five, with the flux ranged from 0.026 to 0.007 m3/(m2 day) with an average error of about 10%. The solution for the groundwater flow is written in terms of an analytic series solution, based on two dimensional potential flows. The approach is basically to solve the hydraulic potential flow for steady state conditions using the Laplace Equation. The advantages of this method are that it is simple yet accurate, and the error in the computation can be readily calculated. The result of this model are then compared to the result of the field measurement from also day zero to day five after inundation, which ranged from 0.030 to 0.013 m3/(m2 day) with the average error about 40%. The results reveal that the series solution model can be used to calculate the flux of the groundwater, especially in the mangrove forest area.
