In this paper, the results of permeability and specific surface area analyses as functions of granulometric composition of various sediments (from silty clays to very well graded gravels) are presented. The effective porosity and the referential grain size are presented as fundamental granulometric parameters expressing an effect of the forces operating on fluid movement through the saturated porous media. This paper suggests procedures for calculating referential grain size and determining effective (flow) porosity, which result in parameters that reliably determine the specific surface area and permeability. These procedures ensure the successful application of the Kozeny–Carman model up to the limits of validity of Darcy's law. The value of effective porosity in the referential mean grain size function was calibrated within the range of 1.5 µm to 6.0 mm. The reliability of the parameters applied in the KC model was confirmed by a very high correlation between the predicted and tested hydraulic conductivity values (R² = 0.99 for sandy and gravelly materials; R² = 0.70 for clayey-silty materials). The group representation of hydraulic conductivity (ranging from 10⁻¹² m s⁻¹ up to 10⁻² m s⁻¹) presents a coefficient of correlation of R² = 0.97 for a total of 175 samples of various deposits. These results present new developments in the research of the effective porosity, the permeability and the specific surface area distributions of porous materials. This is important because these three parameters are critical conditions for successful groundwater flow modeling and contaminant transport. Additionally, from a practical viewpoint, it is very important to identify these parameters swiftly and very accurately.

Topusko is the second warmest natural thermal water spring area in Croatia, located at the southwest edge of the Pannonian Basin System. Due to favourable geothermal properties, these waters have been used for heating and health and recreational tourism since the 1980s. Thermal springs with temperatures up to 50 °C are the final part of an intermediate-scale hydrothermal system. However, systematic research on the Topusko spring area has not been conducted to lay the foundation for sustainable resource utilisation. Multidisciplinary research including the hydrogeochemical characterisation of naturally emerging thermal water, an electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) investigation conducted to reconstruct the subsurface geology, and hydrogeological parametrisation of the geothermal aquifer was carried out to refine the existing local conceptual model. The results show Ca-HCO₃ facies of Topusko thermal waters, which get heated in a Mesozoic carbonate aquifer. The water equilibrium temperature in the geothermal aquifer is estimated to be 78 °C based on the SiO₂-quartz geothermometer. The fault damage zone, which enables the upwelling of thermal water, was identified by ERT investigations. The transmissivity values of the aquifer derived from the results of step-drawdown tests range from 1.8 × 10⁻² to 2.3 × 10⁻² m²/s. Further multidisciplinary research is necessary to improve the existing conceptual model of the Topusko hydrothermal system.

During the pumping of wells, the groundwater level drawdown, as measured in the pumped well, is increased by non-linear losses caused by the water flow velocity through the well screens. This undermines the adequacy of the direct use of the measured drawdown data in the well for the purpose of the realistic identification of the effective well radius and aquifer parameters. This anomaly is avoided by reshaping the drawdown function into a function of the specific drawdown $s_w/Q$ of the pumped well. This reshaping simplifies the exclusion of non-linear losses from the sequence of measured data of the water level in the well at the position of the effective radius of the pumped well. Combining the data of linear losses and the respective pumping rate of the pumped well, a function of the specific drawdown of the radial flow $s_w/Q$ was formed. This function describes the aquifer parameter relations during the respective test pumping. A consistent sequence of the function of the specific drawdown $s_w/Q$ of the pumped well reveals the actual value of the coefficient of nonlinear losses. Moreover, the specific drawdown function enables the reliable estimation of aquifer transmissivity using only the pumped well drawdown data.