Advancing Contaminant Mass Flux Analysis to Focus Remediation: The Three‐Compartment Model

Abstract

Figure 1 . Three-dimensional depiction of variations in hydraulic conductivity and heterogeneous conditions within an alluvial aquifer.

Innovative Contaminant Mass Flux Monitoring in an Aquifer Subject to Tidal Effects

“…Such mass flux outcome as recently been pointed out by Horst et al () as key data on which to base remediation efforts. For site were a large (>90%) fraction of mass flux occurs in primary advective transport zones such as in the present study, achieving a significant pollutant mass reduction is relatively easy using aggressive techniques.…”

Predicting the Impact and Duration of Persistent and Mobile Organic Compounds in Groundwater Systems Using a Contaminant Mass Discharge Approach

“…Furthermore, it is an advantage that CMD is coupled to water flux, since the impact from moving contaminant mass is greater than that of stored contaminant mass (Suthersan et al, 2010). A challenge can be that reliable CMD estimates require dense concentration data and are highly sensitive to hydraulic conductivity values used for the determination (Horst et al, 2017;Suthersan et al, 2016;Troldborg et al, 2008).…”

Viewing the End from the Beginning: Designing for the Transition to Long‐Term Passive Phases of In Situ Chlorinated Solvent Treatment

“…In this example, an interesting observation is the general lack of contaminant rebound (particularly in areas where significant residual phase is unlikely to be present), suggesting the active operational phase stimulates sustained treatment beyond the actual period of organic carbon injection. Much theoretical research and practical experience over the past three decades have clearly demonstrated the critical limitations of the advection-dispersion equation to predict contaminant transport behavior in most natural settings due to geologic heterogeneity, diffusion-driven mass exchange with lowerpermeability zones, and complex contaminant sorption/ desorption (e.g., Sudicky 1986;Fry and Istok 1994;Haggerty and Gorelick 1994;Allen-King et al 1996;Chen et al 2002;Payne et al 2008;Horst et al 2017;Wanner et al 2018;Parker et al 2022). For remedial technologies that only address contaminants in the more permeable zones and/or do not result in persistent and sustained in situ treatment (e.g., in situ chemical oxidation, pump and treat), these back diffusion and desorption processes would be expected to cause (1) contaminant "tailing", extending the time to achieve remedial performance goals and (2) post-remediation "rebound" that must be anticipated in the design and may require the restart of active remedial systems (e.g., Suthersan et al 2015;.…”