• Advances in environmental research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.45-69
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• 2014

The groundwater has been a major source of water supply throughout the ages. Around 50% of the rural as well as urban population in the developing countries like India depends on groundwater for drinking. The groundwater is also an important source in the agriculture and industrial sector. In many parts of the world, groundwater resources are under increasing threat from growing demands, wasteful use and contamination. A good planning and management practices are needed to face this challenge. A key to the management of groundwater is the ability to model the movement of fluids and contaminants in the subsurface environment. It is obvious that the contaminant source activities cannot be completely eliminated and perhaps our water bodies will continue to serve as receptors of vast quantities of waste. In such a scenario, the goal of water quality protection efforts must necessarily be the control and management of these sources to ensure that released pollutants will be sufficiently attenuated within the region of interest and the quality of water at points of withdrawal is not impaired. In order to understand the behaviour of contaminant transport through different types of media, several researchers are carrying out experimental investigations through laboratory and field studies. Many of them are working on the analytical and numerical studies to simulate the movement of contaminants in soil and groundwater of the contaminant transport. With the advent of high power computers especially, a numerical modelling has gained popularity and is indeed of particular relevance in this regard. This paper provides the state of the art of contaminant transport and reviews the allied research works carried out through experimental investigation or using the analytical solution and numerical method. The review involves the investigation in respect of both, saturated and unsaturated, porous media.

• Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.523-559
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• 2001

To predict the fate of groundwater contaminants, accurate spatially continuous information is needed. Because most field sampling of groundwater contaminants are not conducted spatially continuous manner, a special estimation technique is required to interpolate/extrapolate concentration distributions at unmeasured locations. A practical three-dimensional estimations method for in situ groundwater contaminant concentrations is introduced. It consistas of two general steps: estimation of macroscopic transport process and kriging. Using field data and nonlinear optimization techniques, the macroscopic behavior of the contaminant plume is estimated. A spatial distribution of residuals is obtained by subtracting the macroscopic transport portion from field data, then kriging is applied to estimate residuals at unsampled locations. To reduce outlier effects on obtaining correlations between residual data which are needed for determining variougram models, the R(sub)p-estimator is introduced. The proposed estimation method is applied to a field data set.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.417-428
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• 2001

Spatial distribution of groundwater contaminant concentration has special characteristics such as approximate symmetric profile, for example, in the transversal direction to groundwater flow direction, a certain ratio in directional propagation distances, etc. To obtain a geophysically appropriate semivariogram which is a key factor in estimation of groundwater contaminant concentration at desired locations, these special characteristics should be considered. Specifically, the concepts of symmetry and ratio are considered in this paper. By applying these two concepts, significant improvement of semivariograms, estimation variances, and final estimation results compared with the ones by conventional approaches which usually do not account for symmetry and ratio are shown using field experimental data.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.13 no.1_2
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• pp.335-351
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• 2003

Spatial distribution of groundwater contaminant concentration has special characteristics such as approximate symmetric profile, for example, in the transversal direction to groundwater flow direction, a certain ratio in directional propagation distances, etc. To obtain a geophysically appropriate semivariogram which is a key factor in estimation of groundwater contaminant concentration at desired locations, these special characteristics should be considered. In this paper, a method for finding appropriate symmetric axes is introduced. Statistical analyses for the choices of symmetric axes and mathematical models for semivariograrns are performed. After implementing symmetry, the corresponding semivariograrns, kriging variances, and final estimated results show significant improvement compared with those obtained by conventional approaches which usually do not account for symmetry.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.533-545
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• 2015

Spatial and seasonal variations in hydrogeochemical characteristics and the factors affecting the deterioration in quality of shallow portable groundwater in an agricultural area are examined. The aquifer consists of (from the surface to depth) agricultural soil, weathered soil, weathered rock, and bedrock. The geochemical signatures of the shallow groundwater are mostly affected by the NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ contaminants that show a gradual downward increase in concentration from the upper area, due to the irregular distribution of contamination sources. The concentrations of the major cations do not varied with the elapsed time and the NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ ions, when compared with concentrations in background groundwater, increase gradually with the distance from the upper area. This result suggests that the water quality in shallow groundwater deteriorates due to contaminant sources at the surface. The contaminations of the major contaminants in groundwater show a positive linear relationship with electrical conductivity, indicating the deterioration in water quality is related to the effects of the contaminants. The relationships between contaminant concentrations, as inferred from the ternary plots, show the contaminant concentrations in organic fertilizer are positively related to concentrations of NO₃⁻, Cl⁻, and SO₄²⁻ ions in the shallow portable groundwaters, which means the fertilizer is the main contaminant source. The results also show that the deterioration in shallow groundwater quality is caused mainly by NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ derived from organic fertilizer with additional SO₄²⁻ contaminant from livestock wastes. Even though the concentrations of the contaminants within the shallow groundwaters and the contaminant sources are largely variable, it is useful to consider the ratio of contaminant concentrations and the relationship between contaminants in groundwater samples and in the contaminant source when analyzing deterioration in water quality.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.316-319
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• 2005

Contaminated area should be identified for designing polluted groundwater cleanup plan. A methodology was suggested to identify a contaminant plume distribution geostatistically. James & Gorelick (1994) suggested a methodology to evaluate data worth as expected reducing remediation cost. In this study, their methodology was modified to evaluate data worth as expected reducing uncertainty of the contaminant plume distribution. In suggested methodology, the source identification model by Mahar & Datta (2001) using a forward solute transport model is integrated. Suggested methodology was assessed by two simple example problems and its result represented reducing uncertainties of contaminant plume distribution successfully.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.8-12
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• 2003

The centrifuge test result on capped sediment was compared to the advection- dispersion equation proposed for one layered to predict contaminant transport parameters. The fitted contaminant transport parameters for the centrifuge test results were one to three orders of magnitude greater than the estimated parameters from the advection-dispersion equation. This indicates that the centrifuge model over estimated the contaminant transport phenomena. Thus, the centrifuge provides a non-conservative approach to modeling contaminant transport. It should be also noted that the advection-dispersion equation used in this study is a one layered model. Two layered modeling approaches are more appropriate for modeling this data since there are two layers with different partitioning coefficients. Further research is required to model the centrifuge test using two-layered advection-dispersion models.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.751-758
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• 2019

This study tested various assumptions that simplified the configuration of the numerical model for unsaturated zone's contaminant transport to simulate the pathway to exposed point. This study investigated the contaminant migration through in the pollutant exposure pathway of vadoze zone for risk assessment of the contaminated site. For the purpose, generic scenarios as well as contaminant-based scenarios were simulated using the numerical code for transport of the contaminant in the pathway. The finite-difference one-dimensional transport with adsorption and biodegradation were considered, and it also assumed that the initial concentration was also depleted over time. The results of the generic-scenario show that as the groundwater infiltration rate decreases, the longer the path from the source to the groundwater level, the lower the concentration at the point of inflow into the groundwater level. In particular, in the case of high biodegradation rate and rapid depletion of pollutant sources, statistically outliers were found in the simulated results and generic scenarios was good at prediction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.62-63
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.304-307
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• 2005

A numerical modelling method using a backward-in-time advection dispersion equation is introduced in assessing the vulnerability of groundwater to contaminants as an alternative to classical vulnerability mapping methods. The flux and resident concentration measurements are normalized by the total contaminants mass released to the system to provide the travel time probability density function and the location probability function. With the results one can predict the expected travel time of a contaminant from up stream location to a well and also the relative concentration of the contaminant at a well. More specific groundwater vulnerability can be mapped by these predicted measurements.