HR: 0800h
AN: H21E-1062    [Abstracts]
TI: Effects of Biodegradation and Hydrodynamic Dispersion on Contaminant Plume Development
AU: * Ham, P A
EM: ham@geo.uu.nl
AF: Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4 , Utrecht, 3508 TA
AU: Schotting, R J
EM: schotting@geo.uu.nl
AF: Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4 , Utrecht, 3508 TA
AB: A two-dimensional biodegradation model is considered including simultaneous transport and biodegradation of an organic contaminant, electron acceptor and moreover growth and decay of micro-organisms. The problem studied relates to the continuous injection of a contaminant at a point source in an aquifer. Initially, electron acceptor and biomass are present in the entire flow domain, while contaminant is absent. Injection of the contaminant leads to the development of a dispersive mixing zone between the zone where the biomass is activated and the inactive, uncontaminated zone. Mathematically the model consists of three coupled nonlinear partial differential equations. For the transient case, these three equations are reduced to an auxiliary linear equation. The solution of this auxiliary problem is used to recast the three equations into two coupled equations. For the stationary case, the problem is reduced further to a single PDE in terms of one of the dependent variables only. Both transient and stationary cases are solved numerically and comparison of the numerical model and laboratory data show good agreement. In the stationary case, results demonstrate that biodegradation and transversal dispersion are competing processes which control mixing between electron acceptor and injected contaminant.
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1832 Groundwater transport
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting