Entering a test

Set the units, the pumping well, the aquifer thickness and the pumping schedule, then add observation wells and their readings.

Start a new test with File > New. The Test and units window opens; you can return to it any time with Data > Test and units... or by clicking the test name at the top left.

Units

Choose the units your readings are in: length (m, ft, cm or in, for distances, radii, thickness and drawdown), time (seconds, minutes, hours or days since pumping started) and the pumping rate (m3/d, m3/h, l/s, l/min, l/h, US or Imperial gallons per minute, ft3/d or ft3/s). Report T in sets the unit of transmissivity in the results (m2/d, m2/s, ft2/d or US gpd/ft); hydraulic conductivity follows it.

Pumping well and aquifer

• Well radius: the radius of the screen or open hole. It is the distance used for drawdown in the pumping well itself.
• Casing radius: the radius of the casing where the water level moves, which sets the water stored in the well. Leave it empty if it is the same as the well radius. Only the Papadopulos-Cooper solution uses it.
• Saturated thickness: needed by the Neuman solution, and used to report hydraulic conductivity K = T / b and specific storage Ss = S / b.

Pumping schedule

One step is a constant-rate test. Add steps with the + button for a variable-rate or step test; each step has the time it starts and its rate. A step at rate 0 is the end of pumping, and the readings after it are recovery. Every solution handles a schedule by superposition, so recovery readings can be fitted with the pumping ones.

Wells and readings

• Add an observation well with the + button above the well list, then set its name and its distance from the pumping well. A distance of 0 means the pumping well itself.
• Paste readings into the readings table of the selected well: copy two columns, time and drawdown, from a spreadsheet, click the table and press Ctrl+V. The pasted readings replace the well's readings.
• For several wells at once, or for water levels instead of drawdown, use Data > Import readings..., described below.
• Untick a well to leave it out of the fit and the plot without deleting it.
• With the Neuman solution each well also has a Screen: the observed interval as two heights above the base of the aquifer. Leave it empty for a fully penetrating well.

Readings at or before the start of pumping are kept but not fitted or plotted, because the solutions describe drawdown after pumping starts.

Importing readings

Data > Import readings... reads a CSV or text file, or columns pasted into its box. The first column is usually time and each other column one well; lines before the numbers start are read as headings and give the wells their names.

1. Choose a file, or paste the columns.
2. Check the Time column, and say whether the values are drawdown, depth to water below a datum, or water-level elevation.
3. For each well column, tick import, check its name and give its distance from the pumping well.
4. For depth or elevation, give each well's static level, the level before pumping started. PumpPilot fills in the first reading, which is the static level in most logger files.
5. Press Import.

Drawdown is depth minus the static depth, or the static elevation minus the level. Tab, comma, semicolon and space separated files are all read.

Logger clock times

A time column of clock times, as data loggers write them, is recognised by itself. Dates can be year first (2024-03-01 10:15:00) or day first (01/03/2024 10:15), with or without seconds or AM and PM, or the column can hold times of day alone. Give the moment pumping started in Pumping started at; PumpPilot fills in the first reading. Elapsed time is counted from there in the time unit of the test.