Identification of Groundwater Contaminant Location and Release History using Simulation-Optimization Method

Abstract:

Identification of location and release history of contaminant in groundwater is necessary to improve the remediation accuracy and to decrease the remediation cost. Especially in an industrial complex, groundwater is contaminated by various sources during unknown periods and groundwater remediation turns out complicated problems. A simulation-optimization method is preferred to solve the complicated problems of contaminant source identification because a simulation-optimization method has flexible applicability. For simulations of groundwater flow and contaminant transport, MODFLOW, MT3DMS and RT3D are used. These models are integrated with a genetic algorithm to obtain the optimization of contaminant location and release history. Because computing time and costs are enormous for a simulation-optimization method, a distributed computing technique is used to reduce computing time and costs. The performance of developed computer programs is evaluated with hypothetical examples with combinations of aquifers and contaminants from simple to complicated levels. The results shows the possibility of developed computer program to solve the problem of contaminant location and release history problems. This subject is supported by Korea Ministry of Environment as "The GAIA project".