Risk Assessment of Groundwater Pollution in a Mining Area Based on Physical Processes

Bo Zhang,Xiujuan Liang,Y Kharaka,Changlai Xiao,O Shouakar-Stash,Zhiwei Qi,Ge Wang,R Harmon,O Chudaev,R Millot

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/20199809025

Abstract

At present, the study of groundwater pollution risk assessment is generally based on the study of groundwater vulnerability. The impact of the pollutants themselves has not been paid more attention. The assessment of the risk of groundwater pollution should include two aspects: one is the contaminated nature of the aquifer itself and the other is spatial distribution of the pollutant. The vulnerability of the aquifer is only the natural susceptibility of the aquifer to the contaminant. Therefore, the risk assessment of groundwater pollution should also reflect the distribution and transport of pollutants in an aquifer. This study takes a tailings area as an example, and puts forward the risk assessment method of groundwater pollution based on physical processes. Before aquifer contamination occurs, the experts determine spatial distribution of each risk level according to the surrounding economic and social sensitivity conditions and hydrogeological conditions; and then use the numerical model to invert the intensity of the pollution source corresponding to each risk level. The results show that this method can express the distribution in space and time of risk level. For a single point source of contamination, this method is better than the previous based on aquifer vulnerability risk assessment method.

Highlights

Groundwater pollution risk assessment is an important method of groundwater management and pollution prevention and control as a basic work of rational development, utilization and protection of groundwater [1]
The concept of groundwater pollution risk is an extension of the concept of groundwater vulnerability [2, 3], which has evolved on the basis of deepening groundwater vulnerability research
Considering the environmental sensitivity and capacity in the study area, the source intensity of pollutants of each risk level (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5) entering the groundwater from the contaminated site is inverted by the model trial according to the spatial distribution of each risk level delineated in advance

Summary

Introduction

Groundwater pollution risk assessment is an important method of groundwater management and pollution prevention and control as a basic work of rational development, utilization and protection of groundwater [1]. The concept of groundwater pollution risk is an extension of the concept of groundwater vulnerability [2, 3], which has evolved on the basis of deepening groundwater vulnerability research. The concept of groundwater pollution risk has not yet formed a unified understanding. As can be seen from the above studies, the risk of groundwater pollution is caused by the pollution capacity of the aquifer itself and the pollutant load generated by human activities

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion