Rapid Data Assimilation Using an Appropriately Complex Model: a GMDSI worked example report

Abstract

The Groundwater Modelling Decision Support Initiative (GMDSI) is an industry-funded and industry-aligned project focused on improving the role that groundwater modelling plays in supporting environmental management and decision-making. This GMDSI report addresses a number of related issues. They include: appropriate model complexity; appropriate parameterisation complexity; efficient model-based assimilation of information-rich data; and linear analysis. The focus of modelling work that is reported herein is BHP’s Orebody 31 (OB31) situated in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The environs of this mine have been the focus of a number of generations of modelling, some of which is described in the present report. Mining of OB31 commenced in 2016; however data collection and modelling took place for a number of years prior to that.