Overview of these pages

These pages

These pages are about decision-support modelling, particularly as it is applied to groundwater management. They show how numerical simulation, supported by PEST and PEST++, can help people make scientifically-based, informed decisions.

You do not need to be a PEST user to benefit from reading these pages. However if you are a PEST user, you will find out where and how to use aspects of PEST and its supporting software to do things that good decision-support modelling requires.

While these pages cover the concepts, theory and practice of decision-support modelling, they do not discuss numerical simulation. Rather, they discuss software that is used in partnership with numerical simulators to perform tasks which are essential to decision-support. These tasks include, but are not limited to:

•history-matching;

•data worth analysis;

•linear and nonlinear parameter and predictive uncertainty analysis;

•optimisation;

•optimisation under uncertainty.

Many of the concepts that are discussed in these pages are general. However, where specific workflows are discussed, the discussion is mostly (but not entirely) limited to what PEST and PEST-support programs can do. However we do give some attention to PESTPP-IES, the iterative ensemble smoother that comes with PEST++. Refer to the PEST++ pages for discussions and tutorials on PEST++, as well as software (mostly written in Python) that assists in implementation of PEST++ workflows.

These pages are work in progress. If you have any requests or comments, let us know.

Thanks

Thanks to GMDSI for funding the production of these pages. Thanks to SSPA for hosting them. Thanks to Symple for help and advice.

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