In this study, the applicability of the geostatistical evolution strategy as an inverse analysis method of estimating hydraulic properties of small-scale basin was tested. The geostatistical evolution strategy is a type of data assimilation method that can effectively estimate aquifer hydraulic conductivity by combining a global optimization model of the evolution strategy and a local optimization model of the ensemble Kalman filtering. In the applicability test, the geometry, hydraulic boundary conditions, and the distribution of groundwater monitoring wells of Hanlim-Eup were employed. On the other hand, a synthetic hydraulic conductivity distribution was generated and used as the reference property for ease of estimation quality assessment. In the estimations, two different cases were tested where, in Case I, both groundwater levels and hydraulic conductivity measurements were assumed to be available, and only the groundwater levels were available, in Case II. In both cases, the reference and estimated hydraulic conductivity fields were found to show reasonable similarity, even though the prior information for estimation was not accurate. The ability to estimate hydraulic conductivity without accurate prior information suggests that this method can be used effectively to estimate mathematical properties in real-world cases, many of which little prior information is available for the aquifer conditions.

Keywords: Hanlim area, Jeju Island, Aquifer characterization, Geostatistical evolution strategy, Inverse analysis