doi:10.3808/jei.200900149
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GIS-based Contaminant Transport Model for Heterogeneous Hydrogeological Settings

G. B. Menezes1* and H. I. Inyang2

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, California State University, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA
  2. Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems (GIEES), University of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC 28223-0001, USA

*Corresponding author. Tel: +1-323-3434578 Fax: +1-323-3436316 Email: gustavo.menezes@calstatela.edu

Abstract


The development and implementation of a GIS-based Contaminant Transport Model (GIS-CONTRAM) is herein described. GIS-CONTRAM can be employed to model fate and transport of contaminants in the subsurface. ArcGIS’ ModelBuilder and Visual Basic (VB) Scripts are used in 3 integrated steps, to enable GIS-CONTRAM to accommodate spatial variabilities in hydrogeological parameters without compromising computational efficiency. The new model can be easily coupled with vadose zone contaminant transport models. Visual MODFLOW was used for validation of GIS-CONTRAM. Comparisons of configurations and results of GIS-CONTRAM with those of Visual MODFLOW, which is widely used to model groundwater flow and contaminant transport, indicate reasonable correlation with R^2 values of 0.63 and 0.95 for synthetically generated heterogeneous and homogeneous hydrogeological conditions, respectively. Thus, although not as comprehensive as Visual MODFLOW, GIS-CONTRAM provides reasonable contaminant transport results.

Keywords: GIS, groundwater, contaminant fate and transport, model, Visual MODFLOW


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