Assessment of Groundwater Flow Paths and Discharge to the Coastal Region of Baldwin County, Alabama to Understand Contaminant Transport using a Cross- Sectional Groundwater Flow and Transport

...................................................................................................................................... 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ......................................................................................................... 1 PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH................................................................................. 2 RELATED RESEARCH ........................................................................................................................ 2 BACKGROUND.................................................................................................................................. 3 Site Description .................................................................................................................. 3 Water Occurrence and Precipitation.......................................................................... 4 Saltwater and Nitrate Contamination in S. Baldwin County..................................... 6 NUMERICAL MODELING METHODOLOGY......................................................................................... 6 Numerical Simulation of Nitrate and Density Variable Flow ............................................ 6 Simulation Code ................................................................................................................. 7 Spatial Discretization.......................................................................................................... 8 Boundary Conditions.......................................................................................................... 9 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION............................................................................................................. 11 Model Calibration............................................................................................................. 11 Transient Simulation ........................................................................................................ 13 Simulated Flow and Contaminant Transport........................................................... 13 Comparison of Nitrate Field Obs. to SEAWAT Simulation ................................... 17 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................................... 18 EDUCATIONAL AND BROADER IMPACTS......................................................................................... 20 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................................... 21 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 21