Wavelet analysis and filtering to identify principal directions of permeability anisotropy

An accurate representation of permeability anisotropy is needed to correctly model the rate and direction of groundwater flow. Wavelet analysis can be used to characterize principal directions of permeability anisotropy. If the permeability field contains regions with different principal directions, wavelet analysis may only identify the principal directions of the primary region. Secondary regions are sometimes not identified because they tend to be masked by primary principal directions. A method is developed to filter the permeability data set to remove the principal orientations of the primary region, which allows the secondary region to be identified. In this thesis, we present a combined wavelet analysis and filtering method to characterize primary and secondary principal directions of permeability anisotropy.