Modeling Groundwater Flow and Pollution (Theory and Applications of Transport in Porous Media (2))

Groundwater constitutes an important component of many water resource systems, supplying water for domestic use, for industry, and for agriculture. Management of a groundwater system, an aquifer, or a system of aquifers, means making such decisions as to the total quantity of water to be withdrawn annually, the location of wells for pumping and for artificial recharge and their rates, and control conditions at aquifer boundaries. Not less important are decisions related to groundwater qUality. In fact, the quantity and quality problems cannot be separated. In many parts of the world, with the increased withdrawal of ground­ water, often beyond permissible limits, the quality of groundwater has been continuously deteriorating, causing much concern to both suppliers and users. In recent years, in addition to general groundwater quality aspects, public attention has been focused on groundwater contamination by hazardous industrial wastes, by leachate from landfills, by oil spills, and by agricultural activities such as the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and by radioactive waste in repositories located in deep geological formations, to mention some of the most acute contamination sources. In all these cases, management means making decisions to achieve goals without violating specified constraints. In order to enable the planner, or the decision maker, to compare alternative modes of action and to ensure that the constraints are not violated, a tool is needed that will provide information about the response of the system (the aquifer) to various alternatives. Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction....Pages 1-26 Groundwater Motion....Pages 27-52 Modeling Three-Dimensional Flow....Pages 53-84 Modeling Two-Dimensional Flow in Aquifers....Pages 85-122 Modeling Flow in the Unsaturated Zone....Pages 123-152 Modeling Groundwater Pollution....Pages 153-195 Modeling Seawater Intrusion....Pages 196-215 Introduction to Numerical Methods....Pages 216-224 The Finite Difference Method....Pages 225-246 The Finite Element Method....Pages 247-284 Transport by Advection....Pages 285-315 Transport by Advection and Dispersion....Pages 316-343 Numerical Modeling of Seawater Intrusion....Pages 344-363 Back Matter....Pages 364-414 Jacob Bear And Arnold Verruijt. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 381-385.