The Effect of Flow on Pollution and Remediation in Groundwater

1IntroductionFlow is the key mechanism by which pollutants are transmitted from one point to another in hydro-geologic systems. Groundwater flow is not indepen-dent of the geological formation within which it occurs. Hydraulic conductivity which is a measure of groundwater flow is strongly related with the am-bient geologic properties such as texture,porosity and topography. These properties do not only con-trol the rate of groundwater flow but also limit the occurrence,hence the dispersion of…

The Effect of Flow on Pollution and Remediation in Groundwater

Flow, solute transport and pollution remediation through attenuation in unconsolidated porous media were investigated in this study. The variables used in the investigation include soil texture, porosity, topography and hydraulic conductivity. The study revealed that hydraulic conductivity is highly dependent on soil texture, porosity and topography. Hydraulic conductivity was noted to have a controlling influence on groundwater flow and residence time, and the degree of natural attenuation in hydrogeologic systems. Contaminant transport simulated with the MODFLOW Model revealed dominance of advective transport of contaminants in unconsolidated porous media. However, attenuation through sorption (linear isotherm equilibrium controlled) and reaction (first-order irreversible decay) also retarded contaminant plume migration. Thus natural attenuation was found to be highly feasible in clay formations due to low hydraulic conductivity and long groundwater residence times. Though natural attenuation processes including dispersion, diffusion, dilution, mixing, volatilization and biodegradation were not investigated for in this paper, it is shown to be a sound remediation technique of contaminated ground water due to its capacity to destroy or transform contaminants or at least retard their flow.