Homogenization of the transport behavior of nonlinearly adsorbing pollutants in physically and chemically heterogeneous aquifers

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how spatial variability in the hydraulic and chemical properties of groundwater systems affects the transport and sorption behavior of pollutants at the field scale. In this paper, we limit our investigations on pollutants that adsorb according to an equilibrium controlled nonlinear Freundlich sorption isotherm. The new contribution of this paper is take into account not only spatially variable Freundlich distribution coefficients K S but spatially variable Freundlich nonlinearity parameters p as well. Using a homogenization theory approach, we shortly review the impact of spatially variable hydraulic properties on the transport and extend the theory to spatially variable chemical properties. We show that spatially variable Freundlich exponents cause a very different field scale transport and sorption behavior than spatial variations in the distribution coefficients only since in the first case field scale Freundlich parameters and field scale dispersion coefficients become concentration dependent. In particular, field scale retardation is much larger than small-scale retardation.