Complex groundwater flow systems as traveling agent models

PeerJ. 2014 Oct 16:2:e557. doi: 10.7717/peerj.557. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Analyzing field data from pumping tests, we show that as with many other natural phenomena, groundwater flow exhibits complex dynamics described by 1/f power spectrum. This result is theoretically studied within an agent perspective. Using a traveling agent model, we prove that this statistical behavior emerges when the medium is complex. Some heuristic reasoning is provided to justify both spatial and dynamic complexity, as the result of the superposition of an infinite number of stochastic processes. Even more, we show that this implies that non-Kolmogorovian probability is needed for its study, and provide a set of new partial differential equations for groundwater flow.

Keywords: 1/f noise; Complex systems; Hydrogeology; Quantum game theory; Spatially extended games.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a CONACYT fellowship within the Earth Science Graduate School at UNAM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.