MODFLOW Ground-Water Model: User Guide to the Subsidence and Aquifer-System Compaction Package (SUB-WT) for Water-Table Aquifers

A new computer program was developed to simulate vertical compaction in models of regional ground-water flow. The program simulates ground-water storage changes and compaction in discontinuous interbeds or in extensive confining units accounting for stress-dependent changes in storage properties. The new program is a package for MODFLOW the U.S. Geological Survey modular finite-difference ground-water flow model. Several features of the program make it useful for application in shallow unconfined flow systems. Geostatic stress can be treated as a function of water-table elevation and compaction is a function of computed changes in effective stress at the bottom of a model layer. Thickness of compressible sediments in an unconfined model layer can vary in proportion to saturated thickness.