Abstract Socio-hydrology brings an interest in human values, markets, social organizations and public policy to the traditional emphasis of water science on climate, hydrology, toxicology and ecology. It also conveys a decision focus in the form of decision support tools, stakeholder engagement and new knowledge about the science–policy interface. This paper demonstrates how policy decisions and human behaviour can be better integrated into climate and hydrological models to improve their usefulness for decision support. Examples from SW USA and western Canada highlight uncertainties, vulnerabilities and critical tradeoffs facing water decision makers in the face of rapidly changing environmental and societal conditions. Irreducible uncertainties in downscaled climate and hydrological models limit the usefulness of climate-driven, predict-and-plan methods of water resource planning and management. Thus, it is argued that such methods should be replaced by approaches that use exploratory modelling, scenario planning and risk assessment in which the emphasis is on managing uncertainty rather than on reducing it. Model fusion supports all of these processes in integrating human and biophysical aspects of water systems, allowing policy impacts to be quantified and clarified, and fostering public engagement with water resource modelling.

Abstract Numerical simulations of CO 2 injection have been conducted as part of a program to assess the potential for geologic sequestration in a deep brine reservoir at the American Electric Power’s Mountaineer Power Plant in New Haven, West Virginia. The results of the simulations provide design guidance for injection and monitoring strategies, protocols, and permits for a demonstration project for CO 2 injection in these deep saline formations as well as support for integrated risk assessments. The results of simulations of CO 2 injections into the Rose Run Formation using permeability and porosity distributions based on geostatistical analysis indicate that it is capable of receiving commercial-scale injection of CO 2 (up to several hundred thousand tonnes per well annually).

Abstract Throughout the years, geostatistics has greatly influenced the broad spectrum of petroleum and earth sciences. In a directed conversation, five experts from respected university petroleum engineering departments discuss the impact of geostatistics on petroleum, production, and reservoir engineering and debate the current state of the art of geostatistical methodology in these disciplines.

Abstract Geoscientists and engineers have long appreciated that intrareservoir mudstones may affect oil and gas recovery significantly. Mudstones have particularly significant effects in reservoirs with low net-to-gross ( e.g., overbank turbidites) or if reservoirs have highly continuous mudstone layers ( e.g.., tide-influenced deltas). Interdisciplinary outcrop and shallow analog studies formulated and tested models for the spatial distribution of mudstones in deltaic sandstones. At scales from decimeters to hundreds of meters, mudstone length distributions may be described using gamma distributions. This approach is data rich, computationally tractable, and provides direct links to covariance geostatistics commonly used in reservoir modeling. These outcrop observations have been related to and validated using shallow, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar surveys. Experimental design and flow simulations assessed the importance of the intrareservoir mudstones: in a tide-influenced delta the mudstones controlled flow, whereas the mudstones were nearly inconsequential in a marine-influenced distributary point bar.

ABSTRACT Astudy of a tide-influenced deltaic sandstone investigated geologic variations that affect hydrocarbon production in analogous reservoirs. The Cretaceous-aged Frewens Allomember was deposited by a delta prograding into a narrow shoreline embayment between an older, wave-dominated delta lobe to the south and a basin-floor ridge created by subtle structural uplift to the north. The Frewens Allomember is exposed in outcrops of the Frontier Formation in central Wyoming (United States). It comprises two 5-km-wide by 20-km-long upward-coarsening sandstone bodies. Each body contains basinward-dipping internal beds. Heterolithic beds capped by extensive shale drapes record episodic tidal deposition in the lower portions of the sandstone bodies, whereas sandier cross-stratified beds in the upper parts of bodies record stronger and more uniformly ebb-directed currents. During diagenesis, calcite concretions formed preferentially at the top of the upper sandstone body as water circulated down from overlying shales. Diagrams of bedding, facies, calcite concretions, and bed-draping shales were compiled from high-resolution photomosaics and field observations. Sedimentologic logs, field permeameter measurements, and thin-section observations describe petrophysical properties of facies in the delta lobes. Variograms quantify the spatial correlation of permeability in lithofacies. The lengths of bed-draping shales were estimated from outcrop data using a termination frequency model. The spatial distribution of concretions was modeled with indicator geostatistics. Flow models integrated bedding geometry, lithofacies, and petrophysical properties in an appropriate structure for reservoir simulation. These models were used to analyze sensitivity of reservoir behavior to different geologic features and to investigate methods for modeling and upscaling interwell-scale heterogeneity. Intrafacies variability of permeability has negligible effects at the sandstone-body scale but significant effects at the bed scale. Shale lengths increase toward the lateral margins and toward the base of the sandstone bodies. Inclined shales reduce upscaled permeability, recovery efficiency, and breakthrough time. Calcite concretions decrease upscaled permeability. An upscaling method based on flow simulation and response-surface models accurately and efficiently represents the effects of geologic heterogeneity and flow rate on a coarse simulation grid.