OPTIMAL GRONDWATER MONITORING NETWORK DESIGN FOR POLLUTION PLUME ESTIMATION WITH ACTIVE SOURCES

Abstract

A new methodology has been developed to design optimal monitoring network to estimate the transient pollution
plume resulting from active pollution sources in a contaminated aquifer. An optimization algorithm is linked with
geostatistical kriging model as well as a numerical simulation model. Simulated annealing is used as the
optimization tool. The physical process in the aquifer, i.e., the flow and contaminant transport processes are
numerically simulated using numerical groundwater flow and transport simulation models. The spatial
extrapolation of measured and simulated concentration is performed by using geostatistical estimation based on
Kriging. The objective is to minimize the mass estimation error. The developed methodology is evaluated for an
illustrative study area.