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Mining dumps are major sources of pollutants within the mining area of Lausitz, especially sulphate and iron. Their existence in catchment areas comprising groundwater bodies or lakes often imposes negative effects on the water quality. The European Union Water Framework Directive [EU-WFD, 2000. Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. The European Parliament and Council, L327/1, p. 72] aims to achieve 'good quality' status for all water bodies across Europe by 2015. Consequently, predicting the development of ground and lake water quality is necessary and must be based on the geochemical composition of the mining dumps. Therefore, the dumps need to be quantified as pollutant sources.A method to calculate the amount of sulphate in mine dumps is presented. It is based on historic geological and geochemical data characterising the pre-mining situation. Additional information on the dump body, derived from the vertical extension of mining activities and the current Digital Elevation Model (DEM), allows the composition of the dump to be determined. This procedure is demonstrated for the Ba¨rwalde site. An average total sulphur content of 0.62% (5.9 million tonnes) was calculated for the Ba¨rwalde dump. About 40% of it is estimated to be pyrite sulphur. Applying an average pyrite oxidation rate for the whole dump body of 7% led to an additional water-soluble mass of 0.18 million tonnes of sulphate sulphur.Applying this technique to all mine dumps managed by the postmining administration company LMBV, will improve our knowledge of the catchment area for the different lakes of Lausitz and will form an essential basis for reactive transport calculations.

For the deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in argillaceous rocks, the heat production of the waste is an important driver for thermal-hydraulic-mechanical (THM)-coupled processes. These THM processes influence the properties and conditions of the near field that in many repository designs contains bentonite as a clay buffer. One task in the DECOVALEX-2015 (DEvelopment of COupled models and their VALidation against Experiments) project was the modelling of a heated bentonite column (Villar et al. in Long-term THM tests reports: THM cells for the HE-E test: update of results until February 2014. Deliverable-no: D2.2-7.3. CIEMAT Technical Report IEMAT/DMA/2G210/03/2014, 2014) in preparation for the in situ heater experiment HE-E at the underground rock laboratory Mont Terri. DECOVALEX is an international cooperative project that focuses on the development and validation of mathematical models for simulating such coupled processes associated with disposal in deep geological repositories. Eight modelling teams developed their own THM-coupled models for the bentonite column experiment, using six different simulation codes. Each of the teams individually calibrated the THM parameters for the bentonite material. The eight resulting parameter sets agree well and allow a satisfactory reproduction of the TH measurements by all models. The modelling results for the evolution of temperature and relative humidity over time at three sensors in the bentonite column are in good agreement between the teams and with the measured data. Also, changes of the temperature due to modifications of the insulation and the adjustment of the heating power during the course of the experiment are well reproduced. The models were thus able to reproduce the main physical processes of the experiment, both for vapour-dominated diffusion during the heating phase and combined liquid and vapour transport during a subsequent heating and hydration phase. Based on the parameter sets, the teams predict a penetration of the water infiltration front in the 48-cm column filled with bentonite pellets to a depth between 25 and 35 cm over the 15,000 h (i.e. over 20 months) of the hydration phase of the experiment.