Technical Know-How for Modeling of Geological Environment: Part 1—Overview and Groundwater Flow Modeling

It is important for site characterization projects to manage the decision-making process with transparency and traceability and to transfer the technical know-how accumulated during the research and development to the implementing phase and to future generations. The modeling for a geological environment is to be used to synthesize investigation results. Evaluation of the impact of uncertainties in the model is important to identify and prioritize key issues for further investigations. Therefore, a plan for site characterization should be made based on the results of the modeling. The aim of this study is to support for the planning of initial surface-based site characterization based on the technical know-how accumulated from the Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory Project and the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory Project. These projects are broad scientific studies of the deep geological environment that are a basis for research and development for the geological disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. In this study, the work-flow of the groundwater flow modeling, which is one of the geological environment models, and is to be used for setting the area for the geological environment modeling and for groundwater flow characterization, and the related decision-making process using literature data have been summarized.