Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice

Groundwater flow depends on subsurface heterogeneity, which often calls for categorical fields to represent different geological facies. The knowledge about subsurface is however limited and often provided indirectly by state variables, such as hydraulic heads of contaminant concentrations. In such...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Juda, Przemysław, Straubhaar, Julien, Renard, Philippe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Académie des sciences 2022-10-01
Series:Comptes Rendus. Géoscience
Subjects:
Online Access:https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.160/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1825206297079840768
author Juda, Przemysław
Straubhaar, Julien
Renard, Philippe
author_facet Juda, Przemysław
Straubhaar, Julien
Renard, Philippe
author_sort Juda, Przemysław
collection DOAJ
description Groundwater flow depends on subsurface heterogeneity, which often calls for categorical fields to represent different geological facies. The knowledge about subsurface is however limited and often provided indirectly by state variables, such as hydraulic heads of contaminant concentrations. In such cases, solving a categorical inverse problem is an important step in subsurface modeling. In this work, we present and compare three recent inverse frameworks: Posterior Population Expansion (PoPEx), Ensemble Smoother with Multiple Data Assimilation (ESMDA), and DREAM-ZS (a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler). PoPEx and ESDMA are used with Multiple-point statistics (MPS) as geostatistical engines, and DREAM-ZS is used with a Wasserstein generative adversarial network (WGAN). The three inversion methods are tested on a synthetic example of a pumping test in a fluvial channelized aquifer. Moreover, the inverse problem is solved three times with each method, each time using a different training image to check the performance of the methods with different geological priors. To assess the quality of the results, we propose a framework based on continuous ranked probability score (CRPS), which compares single true values with predictive distributions. All methods performed well when using the training image used to create the reference, but their performances were degraded with the alternative training images. PoPEx produced the least geological artifacts but presented a rather slow convergence. ESMDA showed initially a very fast convergence which reaches a plateau, contrary to the remaining methods. DREAM-ZS was overly confident in placing some incorrect geological features but outperformed the other methods in terms of convergence.
format Article
id doaj-art-42977eb8771c49eea2ca884271710a53
institution Kabale University
issn 1778-7025
language English
publishDate 2022-10-01
publisher Académie des sciences
record_format Article
series Comptes Rendus. Géoscience
spelling doaj-art-42977eb8771c49eea2ca884271710a532025-02-07T10:40:14ZengAcadémie des sciencesComptes Rendus. Géoscience1778-70252022-10-01355S1194410.5802/crgeos.16010.5802/crgeos.160Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choiceJuda, Przemysław0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5037-5893Straubhaar, Julien1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2718-4332Renard, Philippe2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4504-435XStochastic Hydrogeology and Geostatistics Group, Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermics, University of Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, SwitzerlandStochastic Hydrogeology and Geostatistics Group, Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermics, University of Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, SwitzerlandDepartment of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Stochastic Hydrogeology Group, University of Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, SwitzerlandGroundwater flow depends on subsurface heterogeneity, which often calls for categorical fields to represent different geological facies. The knowledge about subsurface is however limited and often provided indirectly by state variables, such as hydraulic heads of contaminant concentrations. In such cases, solving a categorical inverse problem is an important step in subsurface modeling. In this work, we present and compare three recent inverse frameworks: Posterior Population Expansion (PoPEx), Ensemble Smoother with Multiple Data Assimilation (ESMDA), and DREAM-ZS (a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler). PoPEx and ESDMA are used with Multiple-point statistics (MPS) as geostatistical engines, and DREAM-ZS is used with a Wasserstein generative adversarial network (WGAN). The three inversion methods are tested on a synthetic example of a pumping test in a fluvial channelized aquifer. Moreover, the inverse problem is solved three times with each method, each time using a different training image to check the performance of the methods with different geological priors. To assess the quality of the results, we propose a framework based on continuous ranked probability score (CRPS), which compares single true values with predictive distributions. All methods performed well when using the training image used to create the reference, but their performances were degraded with the alternative training images. PoPEx produced the least geological artifacts but presented a rather slow convergence. ESMDA showed initially a very fast convergence which reaches a plateau, contrary to the remaining methods. DREAM-ZS was overly confident in placing some incorrect geological features but outperformed the other methods in terms of convergence.https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.160/Stochastic inversionMultiple-point statisticsMonte Carlo samplingPosterior Population ExpansionEnsemble smootherGroundwater flowScoring rules
spellingShingle Juda, Przemysław
Straubhaar, Julien
Renard, Philippe
Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
Comptes Rendus. Géoscience
Stochastic inversion
Multiple-point statistics
Monte Carlo sampling
Posterior Population Expansion
Ensemble smoother
Groundwater flow
Scoring rules
title Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
title_full Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
title_fullStr Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
title_full_unstemmed Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
title_short Comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
title_sort comparison of three recent discrete stochastic inversion methods and influence of the prior choice
topic Stochastic inversion
Multiple-point statistics
Monte Carlo sampling
Posterior Population Expansion
Ensemble smoother
Groundwater flow
Scoring rules
url https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.160/
work_keys_str_mv AT judaprzemysław comparisonofthreerecentdiscretestochasticinversionmethodsandinfluenceofthepriorchoice
AT straubhaarjulien comparisonofthreerecentdiscretestochasticinversionmethodsandinfluenceofthepriorchoice
AT renardphilippe comparisonofthreerecentdiscretestochasticinversionmethodsandinfluenceofthepriorchoice