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Effects of source size, monitoring distance and aquifer heterogeneity on contaminant mass discharge and plume spread uncertainty

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Abstract

Estimating the movement of dissolved contaminants in heterogeneous aquifers is very important for the monitoring design, risk assessment, and remediation of contaminated aquifers. This work explored the influence of source size, monitoring distance, and aquifer heterogeneity on the accuracy of contaminant mass discharge (CMD) estimation using leaching surface approach as well as on the plume spread uncertainty in a 2-D heterogeneous aquifer. The interaction among source size, monitoring distance, and aquifer heterogeneity regarding the accuracy of CMD estimation and the plume spread uncertainty at downstream of the contaminated aquifer was extensively investigated. The transient leaking of a contaminated aquifer in a saturated heterogeneous aquifer under steady-state flow conditions was simulated. The effect of aquifer heterogeneity on the CMD uncertainty was evaluated through the expected values and variance. The results showed that the CMD estimation error varied from underestimation in the mildly heterogeneous aquifer, over accurate estimation in the medium heterogeneous aquifer to overestimation in the highly heterogeneous aquifer. Additionally, the results illustrated that the mean and variance of the transverse spatial extent of the peak concentrations for the plume at the control plane were very sensitive to the aquifer heterogeneity and detectable concentrations of contaminants.

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Abbreviations

CMD:

Contaminant mass discharge (−)

BTC:

Breakthrough cures (−)

\(\sigma_{\ln K}^{2}\) :

Variance of log hydraulic conductivity (−)

LSA:

Leaching surface approach (−)

M:

Contaminant mass (g)

L:

Monitoring distance (m)

Ls :

Source size (m)

Lp :

Transverse length of peak concentration (m)

λ:

Correlation length (m)

\(\sigma_{{L_{p} }}^{2}\) :

Variance of Lp (−)

CD :

Contaminant detectable concentration (mg/L)

Csource :

Contaminant source concentration (mg/L)

MCL:

Maximum contaminant levels (mg/L)

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Bellin and Y. Rubin for making their HYDRO_GEN software completely public. Use of the HYDRO_GEN software make the generation of heterogeneous permeability fields easy. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41402215, 41562012) and One Hundred Talent Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Land Resource Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, Yunnan Province, China

    Guangzhu Cao & Ronggao Qin

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Ronggao Qin, Yanqing Wu & Chi Zhang

  3. Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 18 Xingning Rd, Xining, 810008, Qinghai Province, China

    Jun Wu

  4. University of Florida/IFAS/IRREC, 2199 South Rock Rd, Fort Pierce, FL, 34945, USA

    Jun Wu

  5. Institute of Water Resources and Hydro-electric Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, 5 South Jinhua Road, Xi’an, 710048, Shaanxi Province, China

    Zengguang Xu

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  1. Guangzhu Cao
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Correspondence to Ronggao Qin.

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Cao, G., Qin, R., Wu, Y. et al. Effects of source size, monitoring distance and aquifer heterogeneity on contaminant mass discharge and plume spread uncertainty. Environ Fluid Mech 18, 465–486 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-017-9564-6

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