In this paper, we focus on the development of a finite element model for predicting the contaminant concentration governed by the advective–dispersive equation. In this study, we take into account the first-order degradation of the contaminant to realistically model the transport phenomenon in groundwater. To solve the resulting unsteady advection–diffusion equation with production, a finite el...

The Henry formulation, which couples subsurface flow and salt transport via a variable-density flow formulation, can be used to evaluate the extent of sea water intrusion into coastal aquifers. The coupling gives rise to nontrivial flow patterns that are very different from those observed in inland aquifers. We investigate the influence of these flow patterns on the transport of conservative co...

Based on a comprehensive field study conducted at the Miinchehagen waste disposal site, the groundwater flow and solute transport characteristics of fissured argillites rocks are described. Particularly recent multi-tracer experiments and supplementary laboratory diffusion and batch sorption experiments are presented. The fissured rock behaves as an anisotropic homogeneous continuun with respec...

Abstract. In this paper, solution of inverse contaminant transport problems is studied, including nonlinear sorption in equilibrium and non-equilibrium mode. A precise numerical solver for the direct problem is discussed. The method is based on time stepping and operator splitting with respect to the nonlinear transport, diffusion and adsorption. The nonlinear transport problem corresponds to a...

The success of a groundwater contaminant transport model is dependent on: 1) how well the relevant physical, chemical, and microbiological processes controlling subsurface transport are represented with mathematical equations and their parameters, and 2) how accurately and efficiently the equations are solved. For reactive, multicomponent problems in two or more dimensions, the computational bu...

The aqueous concentrations of heavy metals in soils, sediments, and aquatic environments frequently are controlled by the dissolution and precipitation of discrete mineral phases. Contaminant uptake by organisms as well as contaminant transport in natural systems typically occurs through the solution phase. Thus, the thermodynamic solubility of contaminant-containing minerals in these environme...

Bioavailability of contaminants is a prerequisite for their effective biodegradation in soil. The average bulk concentration of a contaminant, however, is not an appropriate measure for its availability; bioavailability rather depends on the dynamic interplay of potential mass transfer (flux) of a compound to a microbial cell and the capacity of the latter to degrade the compound. In water-unsa...

Sedimentological processes often result in complex three-dimensional subsurface heterogeneity of hydrogeological parameter values. Variogram-based stochastic approaches are often not able to describe heterogeneity in such complex geological environments. This work shows how multiple-point geostatistics can be applied in a realistic hydrogeological application to determine the impact of complex ...

A new modeling approach is presented to improve numerical simulations of groundwater flow and contaminant transport in fractured geological media. The approach couples geological and numerical models through an intermediate mesh generation phase. As a first step, a platform for 3D geological modeling is used to represent fractures as 2D surfaces with arbitrary shape and orientation in 3D space....

There has been a surge of work on models for coupling surface-water with groundwater flows which is at its core the Stokes-Darcy problem, as well as methods for uncoupling the problem into subdomain, subphysics solves. The resulting (Stokes-Darcy) fluid velocity is important because the flow transports contaminants. The numerical analysis and algorithm development for the evolutionary transport...