Bachu, S., ed. (1990): Proceedings Fifth Canadian/American Conference on Hydrogeology: parameter identification and estimation for aquifer and reservoir characterization; Alberta Research Council, ARC/AGS Information Series 116, 467 p.
This volume contains the Proceedings of the Fifth Canadian/American Conference on Hydrogeology, held in Calgary, Alberta, September 18-20, 1990, on the subject of "Parameter Identification and Estimation for Aquifer and Reservoir Characterization".
The present conference format started with the anonymous donation of $5000 to the Alberta Research Council under the condition that the money be spent to encourage the development of the discipline of geochemistry. After the success of the first Applied Geochemistry Workshop, Banff, June 1-3, 1982, it was decided to enlarge the scope and broaden the area of these meetings, and to bring together scientists and practitioners from both sides of the Canada/USA border. Thus, the idea of a series of Canadian/American Conferences on Hydrogeology was born. The Alberta Research Council and the National Water Well Association sponsored the conferences jointly. Since then, the Alberta Research Council has been responsible for program development, running the conferences, and the scientific editing of the proceedings, while the National Water Well Association has handled the advertising and publication of the proceedings volume.
The Canadian/American Conferences on Hydrogeology comprise invited speakers for subjects relevant to the conference theme, and a suite of unsolicited papers which are grouped into broad sections corresponding to the main subjects covered by the invited specialists. The first conference (June 22-26, 1984) dealt with 'Practical Applications of ground Water Geochemistry'. The subject of the second conference (June 25-29, 1985) was 'Hazardous Wastes in Ground Water: A Soluble Dilemma'. After the third conference (June 22-26, 1986) on the subject of 'Hydrogeology of Sedimentary Basins: Application to Exploration and Exploitation', it is now apparent that from the point of view of organization and participation, it would be better to hold the conferences biannually rather than annually. Hence, the fourth conference on 'Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer and Mass Transport in Fractured Rocks' was held June 21-24, 1988, and the present one, the fifth, was held in 1990.
The subject of this conference was chosen because of the increasing importance of proper aquifer and reservoir characterization in the use of exploration, exploitation and protection methods and techniques for water and energy resources. It became widely accepted that natural earth materials are intrinsically heterogeneous in terms of their properties, and that the issue of homogeneity is rather a question of scale. Aquifer and reservoir characterization is the process of identifying and quantitatively assigning properties, recognizing both hard and soft information at the same time taking into account uncertainties related to the data capture, distribution and representativeness. This is an area of currently active research in both the hydrogeological and reservoir engineering communities, and one of the goals of this conference was to bridge the communication gap between the two. This goal was attained, as attested by the subject of the papers and the interests of the participants at the conference. The wide spectrum of subjects, and the theoretical and more applied papers presented, indicate also the timeliness of the conference.