text: A mass balance must be performed, and used along with Darcys law, to arrive at the transient groundwater flow equation. This balance is analogous to the energy balance used in heat transfer to arrive at the heat equation. It is simply a statement of accounting, that for a given control volume, aside from sources or sinks, mass cannot be created or destroyed. The conservation of mass states that, for a given increment of time (Δt'), the difference between the mass flowing in across the boundaries, the mass flowing out across the boundaries, and the sources within the volume, is the change in storage.