Numerical simulation of groundwater contaminant transport in porous media

Abstract

Groundwater has been considered as a major pathway for contamination migration which results in both subsurface pollution and soil contamination. This investigation makes an attempt to set up a two-dimensional numerical model to simulate groundwater flow and pollutant transport through porous media. The numerical model is used to simulate both groundwater flow and contaminant migration in porous media; besides, it is capable of considering the effects of sorption, retardation, and volatilization on the contaminant. Jajrud rural district located near Tehran City in Iran is a potentially contaminated site; furthermore, it is regarded as a potential peril for that zone. Groundwater flow and contaminant transport in Jajrud rural been investigated. This model is based on the finite-difference method which has enough ability to predict the pollution migration, and it is validated by several analytical and experimental test cases. The result revealed that the advection could possibly have been regarded as the main process on the contaminant transport in both reactive and non-reactive form of pollutant, as a result of high velocity in this region; furthermore, the reactive pollutant concentration mitigates 1.33 times more that non-reactive one as a result of high dispersion coefficient and contaminant decay term.