Pollution source identification methods and remediation technologies of groundwater: A review

Groundwater is an important source of drinking water.Groundwater pollution severely endangers drinking water safety and sustainable social development.In the case of groundwater pollution,the top priority is to identify pollution sources,and accurate information on pollution sources is the premise of efficient remediation.Then,an appropriate pollution remediation scheme should be developed according to information on pollution sources,site conditions,and economic costs.The methods for identifying pollution sources mainly include geophysical exploration,geochemistry,isotopic tracing,and numerical modeling.Among these identification methods,only the numerical modeling can recognize various information on pollution sources,while other methods can only identify a certain aspect of pollution sources.The remediation technologies of groundwater can be divided into in-situ and ex-situ remediation technologies according to the remediation location.The in-situ remediation technologies enjoy low costs and a wide remediation range,but their remediation performance is prone to be affected by environmental conditions and cause secondary pollution.The ex-situ remediation technologies boast high remediation efficiency,high processing capacity,and high treatment concentration but suffer high costs.Different methods for pollution source identification and remediation technologies are applicable to different conditions.To achieve the expected identification and remediation results,it is feasible to combine several methods and technologies according to the actual hydrogeological conditions of contaminated sites and the nature of pollutants.Additionally,detailed knowledge about the hydrogeological conditions and stratigraphic structure of the contaminated site is the basis of all work regardless of the adopted identification methods or remediation technologies.

A new method for multi-point pollution source identification

Rapid and accurate identification of the characteristics(source location,number,and intensity)of pollution sources is essential for emergency assessment of contamination events.Compared with single-point source iden-tification,the reconstruction of multiple sources is more challenging.In this study,a two-step inversion method is proposed for multi-point pollution source reconstruction from limited measurements with the number of sources unknown.The applicability of the proposed method is validated with a set of synthetic experiments correspond-ing to one-,two-,and three-point pollution sources.The results show that the number and locations of pollution sources are retrieved exactly the same as prescribed,and the source intensities are estimated with negligible errors.The algorithm exhibits good performance in single-and multi-point pollution source identification,and its accuracy and efficiency of identification do not deteriorate with the increase in the number of sources.Some limitations of the algorithm,together with its capabilities,are also discussed in this paper.

Identification of pollution sources in rivers using a hydrodynamic diffusion wave model and improved Bayesian-Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm

Water quality restoration in rivers requires identification of the locations and discharges of pollution sources,and a reliable mathematical model to accomplish this identification is essential.In this paper,an innovative framework is presented to inversely estimate pollution sources for both accident preparedness and normal management of the allowable pollutant discharge.The proposed model integrates the concepts of the hydrodynamic diffusion wave equation and an improved Bayesian-Markov chain Monte Carlo method(MCMC).The methodological framework is tested using a designed case of a sudden wastewater spill incident(i.e.,source location,flow rate,and starting and ending times of the discharge)and a real case of multiple sewage inputs into a river(i.e.,locations and daily flows of sewage sources).The proposed modeling based on the improved Bayesian-MCMC method can effectively solve high-dimensional search and optimization problems according to known river water levels at pre-set monitoring sites.It can adequately provide accurate source estimation parameters using only one simulation through exploration of the full parameter space.In comparison,the inverse models based on the popular random walk Metropolis(RWM)algorithm and microbial genetic algorithm(MGA)do not produce reliable estimates for the two scenarios even after multiple simulation runs,and they fall into locally optimal solutions.Since much more water level data are available than water quality data,the proposed approach also provides a cost-effective solution for identifying pollution sources in rivers with the support of high-frequency water level data,especially for rivers receiving significant sewage discharges.

Chemical Composition of Urban Street Sediments and Its Sources

The distribution and the concentrations of various chemical elements in street sediments were investigated along a rural-urban boundary in Beijing, China. The statistical factor analysis of the data concerned identifies two anthropogenic sources responsible for the contamination of Beijing air. The first source is a steel factory in the western part of Beijing. From this source, Mn, Fe and Ti were emitted into the atmosphere through chimneys and by wind from coal heaps used as the primary energy source for the factory. The second source is a combination of traffic, domestic heating and some small factories in the center of Beijing urban area discharging Cu, Pb, Zn and Sn. Grain-size analyses show that most of the metals in the road dust have higher concentrations in the small grain-size fraction <0.125 mm, which is the severest case because these small particles with larger specific surface area and high heavy metal contents fly up easily and float in the air for a long time. Besides the anthropogenic contamination, such elements as Y, Zr, Nb, Ce and Rb are derived mainly both from natural soils and from the deserts. This is supported by mineral-phase analysis, which shows a clear imprint of materials in road dusts coming from the west China deserts. Our results clearly show that the chemical compositions of the urban road dusts can be used to identify distinctive sources responsible for the contamination mentioned above. The study shows that the chemistry of road dusts is an important monitor to assess the contamination in the urban environment.

Impact of gravitation on gaseous pollutant source identification

It is necessary to identify a gaseous pollutant source rapidly so that prompt actions can be taken, but this is one of the difficulties in the inverse problem areas. In this paper, an approach to identifying a sudden continuous emission pollutant source based on single sensor information is developed to locate a source in an enclosed space with a steady velocity field. Because the gravity has a very important influence on the gaseous pollutant transport and the source identification, its influence is analyzed theoretically and a conclusion is drawn that the velocity of fluid is a key factor to effectively help weaken the gravitational influence. Further studies for a given 2-D case by using the computational fluid dynamics （CFD） method show that when the velocity of inlet is less than one certain value, the influence of gravity on the pollutant transport is very significant, which will change the velocity field obviously. In order to quantitatively judge the practical applicability of identification approach, a synergy degree of the velocity fields before and after a source appearing is proposed as a condition for considering the influence of gravity. An experimental device simulating pollutant transmission was set up and some experiments were conducted to verify the practical application of the above studies in the actual gravitational environment. The results show that the proposed approach can successfully locate the sudden constant source when the experimental situations meet the identified conditions.