Development of an adjoint sensitivity method for site characterization, uncertainty analysis, and code calibration/validation

The adjoint method is applied to groundwater flow-mass transport coupled equations in variably saturated media. The sensitivity coefficients derived by this method can be calculated by a single execution for each performance measure regardless of the number of parameters in question. The method provides an efficient and effective way to rank the importance of the parameters, so that data collection can be guided in support of site characterization programs. The developed code will facilitate the sensitivity/uncertainty analysis in both model prediction and model calibration/validation. 13 refs., 1 tab.