A Municipal Management Plan for Urban Groundwater Investigation and Remediation

The project MAGPIan, funded by the European Commission under the program LIFE＋2008, aims to develop and implement an optimal strategy for integral groundwater investigation and efficient remediation of key sources of pollution for the whole inner city area. The first investigations included descriptions of the complex hydro-geological system of the eight aquifers, drilling of monitoring wells and set up of the conceptual contaminant model. A conceptual contaminant model was developed to describe the status quo of the present contaminant distribution, as well as the basic processes controlling contaminant migration within the observed aquifers. This included the characterization of redox conditions and natural chlorinated hydrocarbons degradation processes, as well as age dating, forensic interpretations with respect to the contaminant origin, and determination of radioactive and stable isotopes. Further on, a numerical unsteady groundwater flow and contaminant transport model were developed, which enabled a quantitative description of the mass balance within the project area. The unsteady numerical model provided detection of migration paths in the valley of Stuttgart and identification of key sources of pollution.