Proceedings, DOE Geothermal Program Review XVI, Berkeley, CA, April 1-2, 1998, p. 3-3 - 3-9
Multiphase inverse modeling:
An overview
Stefan Finsterle
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
Abstract.
Inverse modeling is a technique to derive model-related parameters from a variety of
observations made on hydrogeologic systems, from small-scale laboratory experiments to
field tests to long-term geothermal reservoir responses. If properly chosen, these observations
contain information about the system behavior that is relevant to the performance of a
geothermal field. Estimating model-related parameters and reducing their uncertainty is an
important step in model development, because errors in the parameters constitute a major
source of prediction errors. This paper contains an overview of inverse modeling applications
using the iTOUGH2 code, demonstrating the possibilities and limitations of a formalized
approach to the parameter estimation problem.
