Comment on “Tu et al., An Analytical Solution of Groundwater Flow in a Confined Aquifer With a Single Well Circulation System, Water Resources Research, First Published: 12 June 2020.”

Although renewed interest in flow around groundwater circulation wells is a positive development, the multiple and unacknowledged republication of previously published results is not. This is what has happened in a recent paper published in Water Resources Research by Tu et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027529). The paper repeats results that appeared in Ni et al. (2011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.04.030) as well as in the lead authors' own earlier work: Tu et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2018.09.029). And all three papers fail to acknowledge that the same ideas and closely related solutions were published in this Journal much earlier by Kabala (1993, https://doi.org/10.1029/92WR01820) and Zlotnik and Ledder (1996, https://doi.org/10.1029/95WR03813).

Duke Scholars

Author Zbigniew J. Kabala Civil and Environmental Engineering