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
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