Sustainable groundwater aquifers are critical in arid and semiarid countries due to the scarcity of surface water and precipitation. Management of groundwater resources requires estimation of aquifer properties and interaction between multilayers in heterogeneous aquifers. A three-dimensional groundwater flow model was implemented to simulate a complex multilayer aquifer in Oman. Steady-state model was calibrated using groundwater level data in July 2016. Both the automated parameter calibration technique and manual trial and error method were applied for calibrating hydraulic conductivity, groundwater recharge, and anisotropy of soil layers. The optimum set of parameters of 14 observation wells was obtained from the simulation with minimum root mean square error of 0.8 m for groundwater water level. The calibrated model was validated using measured data for October 2016, and root mean square error was found to be 0.81 m for groundwater water level. Among the observation wells which were used in the above analysis, 4 of them were directed to different aquifer depths and each two observation wells were in the same location. These two sets of wells, therefore, were used for analyzing interactions among different aquifer layers. Results showed that increased pumping rates enhanced water transfer between multilayers due to increased hydraulic gradient. The effect was more dominant in layers with high vertical hydraulic conductivity. Also, the sensitivity analysis was performed and results indicated that the predicted water level was less sensitive to vertical anisotropy. The findings of this study could be useful for decision-makers for better management of groundwater resources in arid regions.

由于地表水和降水稀少，可持续的地下水含水层在干旱和半干旱国家至关重要。地下水资源的管理需要估算含水层的性质以及非均质含水层中多层之间的相互作用。实施了三维地下水流模型，以模拟阿曼的复杂多层含水层。于2016年7月使用地下水位数据对稳态模型进行了校准。自动参数校准技术和手动试错法均用于校准水力传导率，地下水补给和土层各向异性。通过模拟获得了最佳的14口观测井参数集，地下水水位的最小均方根误差为0.8 m。使用2016年10月的实测数据验证了校准后的模型，发现地下水水位的均方根误差为0.81 m。在上述分析中使用的观察井中，有4处指向不同的含水层深度，每两个观察井位于同一位置。因此，将这两套井用于分析不同含水层之间的相互作用。结果表明，由于水力梯度的增加，增加的抽水速率增强了多层之间的水交换。在具有高垂直水力传导率的层中，这种影响更为明显。另外，进行了敏感性分析，结果表明预测的水位对垂直各向异性不太敏感。