Integrated approaches to investigate reactive transport processes in soil and groundwater

The presentation gives an overview about experimental and numerical approaches to analyze reactive transport processes in soils and groundwater. Examples of laboratory experiments, lysimeter and field experiments are given that are designed to improve our processes understanding of reactive transport of pharmaceuticals (antibiotics, x-ray contrast media), colloids (organic carbon), and bacteria as well as nitrate reduction. Experiments are analyzed with numerical models that count for the complete suite of variable saturated flow under natural transient conditions, conservative transport (given by natural tracer such as isotopes or temperature), microbial degradation of organic contaminants or nitrate, and particle-driven transport of colloids or bacteria. Optimal tracers can be identified that are suitable to predict the long-term fate of high kinetic substances. Finally, uncertainty and sensitivity analyses are used to identify the optimal parameter set which need to be monitored and estimated most accurately.

Invited by Sebastian Reich.