Armazenamento de águas (recarga artificial) por intermédio do fraturamento hidráulico em rochas cristalinas do semi-árido do nordeste do Brasil

• Ano de defesa: 2007
• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Fábio Passos da
• Orientador(a): Pitombeira, Ernesto da Silva
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Palavras-chave em Português: Recursos hídricos; Fraturamento hidráulico; Águas - Armazenamento; Regiões áridas; Águas subterrâneas
• Link de acesso: http://www.repositorio.ufc.br/handle/riufc/22786

The semi-arid region from Northeast of Brazil is characterized by water resource scarcity caused by an irregular rainfall regime, extremely high evaporation rates and soils with unfavorable infiltration rates. In addition, there are droughts that have serious and long-lasting social consequences such as mass rural exodus of the labor force toward urban centers that, without having the adequate conditions to meet the demand, bring about diseases caused by malnutrition and consumption of poor quality waters. A lot of dams have been constructed and continue to be built as a traditional method of water supply. However, these surface reservoirs have turned out to be inefficient due to high evaporation rates and an increase in water salinization. About 30% of the wells from the state of Ceará have been abandoned because their discharges are very low. In this work we developed a methodology that aims to evaluate the applicability of both Hydraulic Fracturing and Aquifer Storage Recovery (ASR) as innovative and alternative technologies that can bring long term solutions to the water scarcity problem in the Northeastern semi-arid of Brazil. During the studies, we needed to use the Meyer Fracturing Simulators software, a computer program developed by the United States of America that allowed us to conduct a set of simulations for several scenarios of application of hydraulic fracturing. The results enabled us to make some analyses regarding the behavior of geometrical parameters of classical models (GDK, PKN and Ellipsoidal) of induced fractures showing those parameters which turned out to be more sensitive to the variations in the input parameters of treatment. Through the research carried out, the present work enabled us to conclude that the Hydraulic Fracturing technology, together with the Aquifer Storage Recovery technology, are technically and economically viable technologies in the region having crystalline bedrock.