Modelling and Assessment of Radionuclides Differential Transport in Groundwater

Abstract

An overview of the essential features of groundwater transport of radioactive contaminants in a saturated porous media is presented and used in an integrated bi-dimensional phenomenological model of transport and fate. The conception and the assumptions implicit in the model are described. The output results are then compared with values estimated by different mathematical space interpo-lation techniques applied to experimental sample measurements obtained in the surroundings of a contaminated site. These interpolation methods allowed evaluating the spatial variability of the contamination, defining the contour of the plume. These values are then compared to those produced by the transport and fate model. This methodology was applied to uranium and radium, due to their special environmental concern.