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Remediation of Contaminated Groundwater

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Groundwater Engineering

Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Civil Engineering ((SPRTRCIENG))

Abstract

In order to decrease the health risk deriving from a contamination event, a number of cleanup and corrective actions, collectively called remediation, can be implemented. Remediation can be applied directly at the site of contamination (in situ) or off site (ex situ), in which case the contaminated environmental component is physically extracted and treated in dedicated facilities at the surface. There are three main remedial approaches, generally categorized as: containment, which aims at preventing the migration of the contamination and hence the exposure of sensitive targets; active restoration, which entails removing or treating the contamination; and natural attenuation, which relies on naturally occurring biological, chemical and physical degradation or transformation processes that convert contaminants into harmless compounds. This Chapter reviews the main containment and remedial strategies available for the management of a groundwater contamination event, and provides valuable information to support the choice of the most suitable approach. The presented strategies include: free product recovery for light non-aqueous phase liquid removal; vacuum enhanced extraction; subsurface containment; pump and treat; air- and bio-sparging; permeable reactive barriers; in situ flushing; in situ oxidation; in situ bioremediation. Applicability, design options and operating conditions, as well as advantages and drawbacks of the presented methods are illustrated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Groundwater Engineering Group, DIATI, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

    Rajandrea Sethi

  2. Bortolami - Di Molfetta s.r.l., Turin, Italy

    Antonio Di Molfetta

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  1. Rajandrea Sethi
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Sethi, R., Di Molfetta, A. (2019). Remediation of Contaminated Groundwater. In: Groundwater Engineering . Springer Tracts in Civil Engineering . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20516-4_17

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