Multiphase inverse modeling: An Overview

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.