A method for quantifying well and reservoir parameters such as permeability, skin, fracture half-length, dual-porosity parameters, and others, by comparing the pressure change and its derivative of the acquired data to reservoir model curve families, called type curves. When a match is found between data and a type curve, the parameters that characterize the behavior of the model providing a match are thereby determined.

Originally, type-curve analysis was done manually using only the pressure change. With the introduction of the pressure derivative, the analysis requires matching both pressure change and its derivative. Computer-assisted matching permits rigorous accounting for superposition in time due to flow-rate variations before and even during (in the case of drawdown analysis) the transient data acquisition, as well as providing a continuum of solutions instead of a type-curve family derived from discrete values for the governing parameters.