See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Hydrogeology III - Uranium, Metals, and Other Contaminants in Groundwater
Abstract:
Reactive transport modeling is a potentially useful method for simulating the effectiveness of proposed restoration techniques. While reactive transport models can be useful, they are a simplification of reality that introduces uncertainty through the model conceptualization, parameterization, and calibration processes. For this reason, quantifying the uncertainty in simulated temporal and spatial hydrogeochemistry is important for post-remedial risk evaluation of metal concentrations and mobility. Quantifying the range of uncertainty in key predictions (such as uranium concentrations at a specific location) can be achieved using forward Monte Carlo or other inverse modeling techniques (trial-and-error parameter sensitivity, calibration constrained Monte-Carlo, Markov-chain, and Null-Space Monte Carlo). These techniques provide simulated values of metal concentrations at specified locations that can be presented as nonlinear uncertainty limits or probability density functions. Decision makers can use these results to better evaluate environmental risk as future metal concentrations with a limited range of possibilities, based on a scientific evaluation of uncertainty.
See more from this Division: General Discipline Sessions
See more from this Session: Hydrogeology III - Uranium, Metals, and Other Contaminants in Groundwater