AHPCRC Ground Water Modeling

Groundwater and Contaminant Transport Modeling


Investigators

Di-Wen Chen and B. Vona - Clark Atlanta University /Army HPC Research Center

Objective

This project is part of an ongoing study of groundwater flow and contaminant transport models and their enhancement with analytical software such as Geographic Information system (GIS) in order to design more effective prediction and remediation procedures for groundwater contamination. The project is a collaborative effort named Groundwater Flow and Solute Transport Modeling for Assessment and Producing at A Superfund Site in Florida, and involves researchers from CAU, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Athens. D.W. Chen spent three months at in EPA Research Laboratory at Athens. B. Vona visited EPA Athens occasionally during this period.

Relevance

The successful completion of the project will result in a better assessment of contaminant transport at a specific site, real life application and testing of the DOD Groundwater Modeling System (GMS), and a deeper insight into effective strategies for linking groundwater models and GIS. The overall result will be the design of better, more comprehensive assessment and analytic tools.

Methodology

The modeling work involves data collection, data analysis and visualization, model calibration and routine simulation. An important issue in the application of mathematical models to describe or predict the fate of solutes in soil and groundwater system is providing the necessary data to support the spatial, temporal, and hydrogeologic model parameter requirements. A management tool is required that allows the model to interact with various needed databases, cope with numerous database management issues, efficiently achieve model parametrization and provide visualization of model input/output. The three-dimensional Groundwater Modeling System (GMS) just developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contains a state-of-the-art flow and solute transport model, a graphical user interface for data manipulation and data analysis GIS link, and model input/output visualization technology.