Effective porosity
The effective porosity, also open or durchflußwirksame porosity refers to the porosity of a rock volume that allows a hydraulic transport of fluids in the subsurface:
In which
- The pore volume, which contributes to the water flow
- The total rock volume.
This rock volume needs to be hydraulically connected to each other, so-called dead-end pores do not contribute to the flow.
The effective porosity of aquifers is determined eg by a tracer experiment. The size of the effective porosity corresponds to about the size of usable porosity in porous aquifers.
- Hydrogeology
- Dimensionless size