Permeability

{
  "id": "MLC-T-ENV-020612",
  "term": "Permeability",
  "field": "Environment",
  "definition": "1. The ease with which water, or other fluid, passes through a substance.\n\n2. Also referred to as intrinsic permeability. It is a qualitative description of the relative ease with which rock, soil, or sediment will transmit a fluid (i.e., liquid or gas). Often used as a synonym for hydraulic conductivity or coefficient of permeability, however, unlike hydraulic conductivity, permeability is not a function of the kinematic viscosity of the fluid that flows through it.\n\n3. Permeability is a characteristic that represents a qualitative description of the relative ease with which rock, soil, or sediment will transmit a fluid (liquid or gas).\n\n4. The rate at which liquids pass through soil or other materials in a specified direction.\n\n5. Generally used to refer to the ability of rock or soil to transmit water.\n\n6. The degree to which groundwater can move freely through an aquifer measured by the interconnection of pores and fractures.\n\n7. The ability of a porous medium such as soil to transmit fluids or gases.\n\n8. Permeability refers to the property of a solid medium, such as rock or soil, that describes how fluids flow through the medium. It is a property of both the medium and the fluid: for example, the permeability of a particular rock will be different if the fluid is water or oil. It is related to porosity in that permeability depends on the size and shape of the spaces between the rock grains or soil particles but it also depends greatly on the size and shape of the interconnections between these spaces. The term porosity only refers to the percentage of the material that is void and does not taken into consideration how this space is distributed.\n\n9. Ability of rock to transmit fluid through pore spaces.\n\n10. A qualitative description of the relative ease with which rock, soil, or sediment will transmit a fluid (liquid or gas). Often used as a synonym for hydraulic conductivity or coefficient of permeability.\n\n11. The overall ability of water to flow through a geologic material, accounting for all openings in the material (e.g., between grains, through fractures, along lava tubes). For HRS purposes, the terms hydraulic conductivity and permeability are used interchangeably.",
  "subject": "Land, waste and cleanup",
  "see_also": [
    "hydraulic connectivity"
  ],
  "references": [
    "Environmental Issues Terms & Acronyms; Pesticides Glossary",
    "Underground Storage Tank Sites Guide Glossary",
    "Waste and Cleanup Risk Assessment Glossary",
    "RCRA Glossary of Terms; Terms of Environment",
    "Drinking Water Technical & Legal Terms",
    "Superfund for Students and Teachers Glossary",
    "Septic Systems Glossary",
    "Underground Injection Control Terms",
    "Glossary: Study of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on Drinking Water Resources",
    "Glossary of Technical Terms: Office of Underground Storage Tanks",
    "Hazard Ranking System Glossary"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/environment/permeability/"
}