RESEARCH OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to to characterize and analyze in-situ flow and transport within the vadose zone during a mid-scale hydrologic infiltration experiment. This project has employed numerical and experimental tools developed under a previously funded EMSP proposal (project number 55332) to provide 3-D unsaturated hydrologic property distributions. In the present pr...

The Hanford Site was one of the DOE’s major nuclear weapons production sites from 1940 to 1989. Over time, 67 of the 149 single-shell tanks have leaked or are suspected of having leaked [1]. Contaminants such as Tc and U have been found in elevated concentrations in the vadose zone and groundwater beneath the single shell tank farms [2]. In order to make decisions on remedial actions, numerous ...

Slow sensors arise in many applications, including sensing chemical concentrations in tracking of contaminant plumes. Slow sensors are often the cause of poor performance and a potential cause of instability. In this paper, we design a modified extremum seeking scheme to account and exploit slow sensor dynamics. We also consider the worst case, which is sensor dynamics governed by a pure integr...

The occurrence of halogenated volatile organic compounds (HVOCs) in groundwater beneath several municipal solid waste landfills in Tucson, Arizona in the absence of significant liquid phase movement has suggested that vapor phase transport may be the principal process transporting HVOCs from the vadose zone into the water table. The results of mathematical modeling of these transport processes ...

....................................................................................................................................... 1 Processes affecting redox conditions in near surface soils and sediments ................................. 1 Oxygen transport from to the subsurface ................................................................................ 1 Anaerobic metabolism of org...

Leachate from municipal landfills can create groundwater contaminant plumes that may last for decades to centuries. The fate of reactive contaminants in leachate-affected aquifers depends on the sustainability of biogeochemical processes affecting contaminant transport. Temporal variations in the configuration of redox zones downgradient from the Norman Landfill were studied for more than a dec...

Ground-penetrating radar GPR attenuation-difference tomography is a useful tool for imaging the migration of electrically anomalous tracer or contaminant plumes. Attenuation-difference tomography uses the difference in the trace amplitudes of tomographic data sets collected at different times to image the distribution of bulk-conductivity changes within the medium. The most common approach for ...

Radio frequency geophysical methods are known for being very versatile tools in groundand groundwater investigation at shallow depths. They are fast and easy to use and allow a high density of information over large surfaces, which makes them very suitable for geological mapping sensu lato (faults, lithological contacts, groundwater-bearing structures, vulnerability maps, and contaminant plumes...

An analytical model is used to simulate the effects of partial source removal and plume remediation on ethylene dibromide (EDB) and 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA) plumes at contaminated underground storage tank (UST) sites. The risk posed by EDB, 1,2-DCA, and commingled gasoline hydrocarbons varies throughout the plume over time. Dissolution from the light nonaqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) determin...

The intentional or accidental large-scale release of a chemical-biological agent in an urban zone remains a viable threat to Homeland Security. As these silent, invisible and odorless plumes can cause massive casualties that would overwhelm emergency facilities, modeling, tracking and real-time prediction of plume dispersion and lethality is central to developing a user-friendly first responder...