A Program to Calculate Ground‐Water Mound Heights

Mounding of the ground‐water table beneath recharge sources may be of concern where the raised water table approaches too closely to near‐surface facilities or features. Because of its high accuracy and wide range of applicability, the method of Hantush is probably the most widely used to calculate the time‐varying heights of ground‐water mounds on extensive and near‐horizontal saturated zones. Use of that method entails a number of inconveniences, however, including function evaluations and two‐dimensional interpolations between tabulated values, which must be performed iteratively. A FORTRAN computer program was developed to rapidly perform the necessary iterations and to evaluate some rather long and complex equations. These equations avoid the need for interpolation or other approximation procedures, and they provide accurate calculations for all conditions. Comparison of results from the computer program with results from approximation procedures indicates the areas and extents of the unreliability of the approximation procedures.