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A probabilistic assessment of surface water-groundwater exchange flux at a PCE contaminated site using groundwater modelling

Benavides Höglund, Nikolas LU orcid ; Sparrenbom, Charlotte LU and Hugman, Rui (2023) In Frontiers in Earth Science 11.
Abstract

Polluted groundwater discharge at a chlorinated solvent contaminated site in Hagfors, Sweden, is affecting a nearby stream flowing through a sparsely populated area. Because of difficulties related to source zone remediation, decision makers recently changed the short-term site management objective to mitigating discharge of polluted groundwater to the stream. To help formulating targeted remediation strategies pertaining to the new objective, we developed a groundwater numerical decision-support model. To facilitate reproducibility, the modelling workflow was scripted. The model was designed to quantify and reduce the uncertainty of surface water-groundwater (SW-GW) exchange fluxes for the studied period (2016–2020) through the use of... (More)

Polluted groundwater discharge at a chlorinated solvent contaminated site in Hagfors, Sweden, is affecting a nearby stream flowing through a sparsely populated area. Because of difficulties related to source zone remediation, decision makers recently changed the short-term site management objective to mitigating discharge of polluted groundwater to the stream. To help formulating targeted remediation strategies pertaining to the new objective, we developed a groundwater numerical decision-support model. To facilitate reproducibility, the modelling workflow was scripted. The model was designed to quantify and reduce the uncertainty of surface water-groundwater (SW-GW) exchange fluxes for the studied period (2016–2020) through the use of history-matching. In addition to classical observations, thermal anomalies detected in fiber optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) measurements were used to inform the model of groundwater discharge. After assessing SW-GW exchange fluxes, we used measurements of surface water chemistry to provide a probabilistic estimation of mass influx and spatio-temporal distributions of contaminated groundwater discharge. Results show 1) SW-GW exchange fluxes are likely to be significantly larger than previously estimated, and 2) prior estimations of mass influx are located near the center of the posterior probability distribution. Based on this, we recommend decision makers to focus remediation action on specific segments of the stream.

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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
distributed temperature sensing, groundwater contamination, groundwater modelling, PCE, surface water-groundwater interaction, tetrachloroethylene, uncertainty quantification
in
Frontiers in Earth Science
volume
11
article number
1168609
publisher
Frontiers Media S. A.
external identifiers
  • scopus:85165162093
ISSN
2296-6463
DOI
10.3389/feart.2023.1168609
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Funding Information: Ulf Winnberg and Kristin Forsberg at SGU is thanked for fruitful discussion concerning site strategy and encouragement. Nicklas Larsson and Gro Lilbæk at Nirás AB is acknowledged for providing data crucial for the implementation and realization of this study. Professor John Doherty (Flinders University, Watermark Numerical Computing) is thanked for providing the Linux version of the PEST suite, as well as for providing compilation instructions. The data handling/computations were enabled by resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Aurora and LU Local partially funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant agreement no. 2018-05973. Marcos Acebes at SNIC support is acknowledged for assistance concerning technical and implementation aspects. Funding Information: Funding for the work was provided by Formas, The Swedish Research Council for Environment (ref. 2016-20099 and 2016-00808), SBUF (ref. 13336), ÅForsk (ref. 14-332), SGU, NCC, and Sven Tyréns Stiftelse and Lund University. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2023 Benavides Höglund, Sparrenbom and Hugman.
id
7bd7bc6e-337f-40be-a3d1-a3d5f682d4e9
date added to LUP
2023-09-23 17:34:10
date last changed
2024-03-07 00:54:43
@article{7bd7bc6e-337f-40be-a3d1-a3d5f682d4e9,
  abstract     = {{<p>Polluted groundwater discharge at a chlorinated solvent contaminated site in Hagfors, Sweden, is affecting a nearby stream flowing through a sparsely populated area. Because of difficulties related to source zone remediation, decision makers recently changed the short-term site management objective to mitigating discharge of polluted groundwater to the stream. To help formulating targeted remediation strategies pertaining to the new objective, we developed a groundwater numerical decision-support model. To facilitate reproducibility, the modelling workflow was scripted. The model was designed to quantify and reduce the uncertainty of surface water-groundwater (SW-GW) exchange fluxes for the studied period (2016–2020) through the use of history-matching. In addition to classical observations, thermal anomalies detected in fiber optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) measurements were used to inform the model of groundwater discharge. After assessing SW-GW exchange fluxes, we used measurements of surface water chemistry to provide a probabilistic estimation of mass influx and spatio-temporal distributions of contaminated groundwater discharge. Results show 1) SW-GW exchange fluxes are likely to be significantly larger than previously estimated, and 2) prior estimations of mass influx are located near the center of the posterior probability distribution. Based on this, we recommend decision makers to focus remediation action on specific segments of the stream.</p>}},
  author       = {{Benavides Höglund, Nikolas and Sparrenbom, Charlotte and Hugman, Rui}},
  issn         = {{2296-6463}},
  keywords     = {{distributed temperature sensing; groundwater contamination; groundwater modelling; PCE; surface water-groundwater interaction; tetrachloroethylene; uncertainty quantification}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Frontiers Media S. A.}},
  series       = {{Frontiers in Earth Science}},
  title        = {{A probabilistic assessment of surface water-groundwater exchange flux at a PCE contaminated site using groundwater modelling}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1168609}},
  doi          = {{10.3389/feart.2023.1168609}},
  volume       = {{11}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}