CE891- Spring 2002

Groundwater Flow and Contaminant Transport Modeling (3 Credits)

Course Objective

The purpose of this course is to give you a good introduction to practical groundwater flow and contaminant transport modeling and stochastic groundwater modeling. The course is designed as hands-on and application oriented. We will cover the fundamental modeling theories but the emphasis will be on high-level conceptual modeling, and teaching you how to solve complex real-world problems related to groundwater contamination characterization, pollution control, remediation, and water resources management. You will be learning groundwater modeling and modeling theories by actually building models as a class, individually, and in groups for several real-world sites.

Instructor:

Dr. Shu-Guang Li (http://www.egr.msu.edu/~lishug/), Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. You are encouraged to communicate with the instructor in whichever system works to your advantage. The options are office visit (RCE 123), emails ( lishug@egr.msu.edu), telephone (429-1929), and through groundwater modeling forum

Class Time and Classroom:

Mondays/Wednesdays 17:00-18:20 PM. Classroom: 1257 Anthony Hall

Office Hours:

Mondays/Wednesday, 16:00-17:00 PM, other times by appointment

Text:

Anderson and Woessner, Applied Groundwater Modeling , Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-059485-4

This is a good and very readable textbook on groundwater modeling. The focus is less on fundamental theory and more on practical application. It fits our needs for this class well and it should be a good reference book for you in your future modeling careers.

References:

1. H. Wang and M.P. Anderson, Introduction to Groundwater Modeling: Finite Difference and Finite Element Methods, , Freeman, 1982. ISBN 0-7167-1303-9
2. C. Zheng and G. Bennett, Applied contaminant transport modeling: theory and practice, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995, ISBN 0-442-01348-5
3. J. Bear and A. Verruijt, Modeling Groundwater Flow and Pollution
4. Freeze and Cherry, Groundwater, Prentice-Hall, 1979, ISBN 0-13-365312-9
5. Domenico and Schwartz, Physical and Chemical Hydrogeology, Wiley, 1993, ISBN 0-471-50744-X
6. Fetter, Contaminant Hydrogeology, Macmillan, 1992, ISBN 0-02-337135-8
7. Fetter, Applied Hydrogeology, Merrill, 3rd Edition, 1994, ISBN 0-02-336490-4
8. Groundwater Hydraulics and Pollutant Transport, ISBN 0-13-975616-7, Prentice-Hall, 2000
9. Bear, Hydraulics of Groundwater, McGraw-Hill, 1979
10. Bouwer, Groundwater Hydrology, McGraw Hill, 1978, ISBN 0-07-006715-5
11. Harr, A Civil Action, Vintage Books, 1995, ISBN 0-679-77267-7

Prerequisites by Topic:

1. Fundamentals of Groundwater Hydrology

Detailed Course Topics and Schedule

	Date	Course topics	Readings	Homework/ Projects	Remarks
1	1/7	Overview of groundwater modeling and motivational case studies	Anderson chapter 1
2	1/9	Box type flow models, water balance analysis and applications	Handout
3	1/14	Box type water quality models, contaminant mass balance analysis and applications. In class practice problem		Pb 1: Hazardous waste site containment Pb2, Coupled lake and aquifer contamination Pb3, Pesticide contamination and endangered minnows Due 1/23
4	1/16	Spatially variations, distributed modeling, finite-difference modeling of 2D aquifer flow, truncation error and grid design, solution of matrix systems		Pb4, Aquifer flow model - derivation of a general numerical scheme
	1/21	MLK Holiday - Class canceled
5	1/23	Advanced iterative methods. Flow analysis and visualization, head contours, streamline, pathline, velocity vectors. Particle tracking theory, euler method and Runge Kutta method. Interactive experiments of solution methods and algorithmic visualization	Handout (Wang and Anderson), Chap 11
6	1/28	Complex models, modeling heterogeneity, curved boundaries, impervious area; Modeling unconfined aquifers, non-linearity and water table iterations, aquifer drying and rewetting; Introduction to Interactive Groundwater 3.2: real-time modeling, visualization, monitoring, and analysis. Water budget analysis.
7	1/30	In class hands on investigation: Modeling groundwater flow at the East Multnomah County site, Oregon and delineating wellhead protection areas for Interlachen community.		Project 1
8	2/4	Modeling complex sources and sinks, wells, large perennial rivers, shallow/intermittent streams and creeks, lakes, springs, wetlands, surface seepage, groundwater drains, natural recharge, evapotranspiration. Modeling groundwater surface water interaction.	Chap 5
9	2/6	Boundary fluxes, geological boundaries, “remote” boundaries, hydraulic boundaries, simulated boundaries. Nested models and telescopic approach, multi-scales and multi-resolution modeling.	Chap 4
10	2/11	In class hands-on investigation: Hubbertville water supply development and its impact on a nearby swamp and waterfowl habitat.
11	2/13	In class hands-on investigation: Modeling groundwater flow and offsite advective contaminant transport in the sand/gravel aquifer at the St. Johns Landfill
12	2/18	Modeling aquifer-aquitard systems, aquifer interactions; Vertical discretization, quasi-3D modeling, fully 3D modeling. Computational issues, profile modeling. Introduction to Interactive Groundwater 4.0. Real-time demonstration and tutorial	Chap 3
13	2/20	In class hands-on investigation: 3D GW flow modeling at the Monahne River groundwater contamination site
14	2/25	Unsteady flow modeling. Aquifer storage, elastic vs. drainage storage coefficient, Selection of time steps, numerical stability, initial conditions, cyclic conditions, simulated initial conditions.	Chap 7
15	2/27	In class hands-on investigation. Modeling leachate mounding and post-closure dissipation at the St. Johns Landfill, Portland, Oregon: Modeling dynamic interaction between the Columbia river and the sand/gravel aquifer
	3/4	Spring Break
	3/6	Spring Break
16	3/11	Woburn Superfund site project, team-based collaborative investigation. Arguments of defenses and plaintiff
17	3/13	Solute transport modeling, Transport process visualization. Advection and particle tracking. Molecular diffusion, hydrodynamic dispersion, macrodispersion, random walk	Handout
18	3/18	Sorption and reactions, Advection dispersion reaction equation Linear isotherm and retardation. Partitioning coefficients for hydrophobic organic contaminants	Handout
19	3/20	Numerical methods for solving advection dominated dispersion equation. Random walk approach, method of characteristics, operator splitting, time-step selection, grid-design and numerical dilution/dispersion. Interactive experiments with different transport solvers, algorithmic visualization. Reactive transport visualization	Handout
20	3/25	In class hands-on investigation: 3D transport modeling at the Monahne River groundwater contamination site – designing an extraction system.
21	3/27	Calibration and inverse modeling, calibration parameters, targets, criteria, and guideline. Error analysis. Visual calibration.	Chap 8
22	4/1	Parameter uncertainty and sensitivity analysis; Random variable representation and uncertainty propagation, stochastic modeling/Monte Carlo simulation, Probabilistic characterization: means, variances, and probability
23	4/3	Distributed small-scale heterogeneity, real-world data. In-class hands-on exploration of effects of heterogeneity on solute transport: conductivity heterogeneity, porosity variability, variability in partition coefficient, temporal variability, recharge variability; interaction of geological, hydrological, and chemical heterogeneity; effect of heterogeneity on cleanup efficiency
24	4/8	Characterization of heterogeneity. Geostatistics, spatial data analysis, statistical inferences, random field representation, random field generation and algorithm
25	4/10	Analysis of heterogeneity. Effective hydraulic conductivity, heterogeneity vs. anisotropy, field-scale macrodispersion, stochastic approach for estimating field-scale dispersivity,
26	4/15	Kriging, ordinary and universal, and conditional simulation
27		In class hands-on investigation: Analysis of Cape Cod site data, interactive visual experiments with various deterministic and stochastic spatial interpolation and simulation techniques
28	4/17	Conditional Monte Carlo simulation Probabilistic characterization and analysis, mean head and plume and variance maps, confidence intervals, probability and risks
29	4/22	Hands-on investigation: Stochastic modeling of solute transport at the Cape Cod site, Massachusetts, unconditional and conditional Monte Carlo simulation.
30	4/24	Monitoring and decision making under uncertainty
31	4/29 –5/3 Finals week	Woburn project presentations and debate

Grading Policy

Grades will be given based upon performance in homework/mini projects and a formal technical report and presentation for the final term project (Woburn project) as follows:

1. Homework/mini-projects 60%

2. Term project written report 30 %

3. Term project presentation 10%

Enrollment

A30843685 , Afshari, Soheil , GR , M , Environmental Engineering , afshari1

A30873401 , Balla, Saradhi Jyothi , GR , M , Environmental Engineering , ballasar

A28252777 , Cooper, Lon Michael , GR , D , Geological Sciences , cooperl7

A21909214 , Kim, Taehong , GR , D , Environmental Geosciences , kimtaeh6

A33071052 , Ni, Chuen-Fa , GR , D , Civil Engineering , nichuenf

A23133581 , Paulson, Kyle James , GR , M , Environmental Engineering , paulson7

A28237982 , Prawiranata, Haryono , GR , M , Environmental Engineering , prawiran

A25718074 , Simard, Andreanne , GR , M , Civil Engineering , simardan

A31222089 , Trahan, Robert Stirling ,GR , M , Geological Sciences , trahanro

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