Parameter Identification in Field Problems

In water resources field problems, unknown physical parameters are present in the governing partial differential equations that must be determined before relevant numerical results can be obtained. The identification of these parameters is formulated in this paper as a minimization problem in which the function to be minimized is a least squares comparison between the model equation and the systems responses, the field data. The minimization technique utilized is the Fletcher‐Powell method. Three typical water resources field problems are used as examples to demonstrate the technique.