Effect of NAPL exposure on the wettability and two‐phase flow in a single rock fracture

Surface‐wetting properties are an important cause of changing the groundwater and two‐phase fluid flows. Various factors affecting the surface wettability were investigated in a parallel‐walled glass fracture with non‐aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) (gasoline, diesel, trichloroethylene, and creosote) wetted surfaces. First, the effect of the duration of NAPL exposure on wettability change was considered at pre‐wet fracture surfaces using the various NAPL species, and the result showed that the surface became hydrophobic after the exposure time of NAPL exceeded 2000 min. Second, the initial wetting state of the surface affected the timing when the wettability change begins as well as the extent of the wettability change in an NAPL‐wetted rock fractures. Under the dry condition, the wettability change was completed within a very short time of exposure to NAPL (~5 min), and then it finally reached the intermediate and weakly NAPL wetting (contact angle of 118°). Under the pre‐wet condition, a relatively long time of exposure (~5000 min) was needed to observe the obvious change of the surface wettability, which was changed up to strongly NAPL wetting (contact angle of 142°). Third, the wettability changed by NAPL exposure was stable and maintained for a long time, regardless of water flushing rate and temperature. Finally, the wettability change by the exposure of NAPL on parallel fracture surfaces was evaluated at various groundwater flow velocities. Result showed that groundwater flow velocity has an important impact upon measured contact angle. Although fracture surfaces were exposed to NAPL at the low groundwater flow velocity, the wettability was not changed from hydrophilic to hydrophobic when the contact time between NAPL and mineral surfaces was not sufficient owing to the pulse‐type movement of NAPL. This implies that the variation of exposure pattern due to groundwater flow on the wettability change can be an important factor affecting the wettability change of fracture surface and migration behaviour at natural fractured rock aquifers in case of NAPL spill. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identification of groundwater recharge sources and processes in a heterogeneous alluvial aquifer: results from multi‐level monitoring of hydrochemistry and environmental isotopes in a riverside agricultural area in Korea

We evaluated sources and pathways of groundwater recharge for a heterogeneous alluvial aquifer beneath an agricultural field, based on multi‐level monitoring of hydrochemistry and environmental isotopes of a riverside groundwater system at Buyeo, Korea. Two distinct groundwater zones were identified with depth: (1) a shallow oxic groundwater zone, characterized by elevated concentrations of NO₃^? and (2) a deeper (>10–14 m from the ground surface) sub‐oxic groundwater zone with high concentrations of dissolved Fe, silica, and HCO₃^?, but little nitrate. The change of redox zones occurred at a depth where the aquifer sediments change from an upper sandy stratum to a silty stratum with mud caps. The δ¹⁸O and δ²H values of groundwater were also different between the two zones. Hydrochemical and δ¹⁸O? δ²H data of oxic groundwater are similar to those of soil water. This illustrates that recharge of oxic groundwater mainly occurs through direct infiltration of rain and irrigation water in the sandy soil area where vegetable cropping with abundant fertilizer use is predominant. Oxic groundwater is therefore severely contaminated by agrochemical pollutants such as nitrate. In contrast, deeper sub‐oxic groundwater contains only small amounts of dissolved oxygen (DO) and NO₃^?. The ³H contents and elevated silica concentrations in sub‐oxic groundwater indicate a somewhat longer mean residence time of groundwater within this part of the aquifer. Sub‐oxic groundwater was also characterized by higher δ¹⁸O and δ²H values and lower d‐excess values, indicating significant evaporation during recharge. We suggest that recharge of sub‐oxic groundwater occurs in the areas of paddy rice fields where standing irrigation and rain water are affected by strong evaporation, and that reducing conditions develop during subsequent sub‐surface infiltration. This study illustrates the existence of two groundwater bodies with different recharge processes within an alluvial aquifer. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

4D active time constrained resistivity inversion

Techniques that incorporate regularization in space and time have been proposed to reduce inversion artifacts that may lead a misinterpretation of geophysical monitoring data. Applying this time regularization, however, may result in a model too smoothly carrying in the time domain. To alleviate this problem, we propose an algorithm for inverting time-lapse resistivity monitoring data.Here the time regularization is not considered to be constant between different time steps but is now allowed to vary depending on the degree of spatial resistivity changes occurring between different monitoring stages. Two methods are proposed to assign different time Lagrangian values, one based on a pre-estimation during execution time, and one using a-priori information. Both methods require a threshold to characterize the significance of the observed resistivity changes with time. We performed numerous numerical experiments using synthetic data to provide reasonable threshold values. Synthetic data tests illustrate that the new algorithm, named 4D Active Time Constrained (4D-ATC), produces in most cases improved time-lapse images when compared with existing techniques. Further the applicability of the new scheme is demonstrated with real data. Overall, the new algorithm is shown to be a useful tool for processing time-lapse resistivity data, which can be used with minor modifications to other types of time-lapse geophysical data.     

An analysis on movement patterns between zones using smart card data in subway networks

Identifying zones and movement patterns of people is crucial to understanding adjacent regions and the relationship in urban areas. Most previous studies addressed zones or movement patterns separately without analysing simultaneously the two issues. In this article, we propose an integrated approach to discover directly both zones and movement patterns among the zones, referred to as movement patterns between zones (MZPs), from historical boarding behaviours of passengers in subway networks by using an agglomerative clustering method. In addition, evaluation measures of MZPs are suggested in terms of coverage and accuracy. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is finally demonstrated through a real-world data set obtained from smart cards on a subway network in Seoul, Korea.