Radionuclide transport in shallow groundwater

Groundwater system characterisation in support of safety assessment for radioactive waste disposal

“…The groundwater dynamic in the flood plain, during the period when the hydraulic head of the groundwater on the terrace is high, is illustrated in water-table map of the groundwater recharges the river and its average flow is in the direction north to south. The same behaviour of the flow lines was obtained simulating the groundwater dynamic in the same period (Testoni et al, 2015). On the contrary, in late winter-early spring, the recharge of the river due to the groundwater in the flood plain, facilitated by the groundwater head on the terrace is weaker.…”

“…Starting from the steady state model, a transient calibration model was developed, analysing available data for the period from 21 May to 4 August 1999 (Testoni et al, 2015). The Dora Baltea River was almost in the usual flow condition of the late spring-summer season, which corresponds to a mean estimated value of 300 m 3 /s.…”

Coupling of unsaturated zone and saturated zone in radionuclide transport simulations

“…Several stratigraphies were identified; they are mainly made up of loamy sand, sandy loam, gravel, sand, silty gravel, silt, silty loam. The performed analysis was focused on the shallow aquifer, due to the results obtained in (Testoni et al, 2015). In fact, it was deduced that the detailed study of the shallow aquifer has proved to be sufficient to protect the deep aquifer from the radiological contamination point of view.…”

“…For this reason, in this study a literature research was carried out in order to identify which simulation tools are widely accepted and used by scientific community to model unsaturated zone and saturated zone, respectively. Thus, suitable software to perform separate studies was applied and tested on the unsaturated zone (Testoni et al, 2014), through HYDRUS 1D (Šimůnek et al, 2013), and on groundwater (Testoni et al, 2015;, through MODFLOW (Harbaugh A., 2005) and MT3DMS (Zheng and Wang, 1999). Then, these software were coupled in order to represent and model both zones as unique system, considering the effect of unsaturated zone on the transport in groundwater.…”

Radioactive Wastes

“…Further, responses indicate that public preferences are consistent with current design practice for nuclear power plants and public preferences related to plant design are not influenced strongly by their existing attitudes. Testoni et al, (2015) analyzes the source term as the key point in the modeling of the transport of radionuclides in groundwater and soil. A methodological approach, which focuses on the dynamic of the source term in space and time, was applied to model the transport of radionuclides.…”