Geological and hydrogeological characterization of the landfill areas located around Bucharest city in the context of environmental management

The process of risk assessment and investigation of potentially contaminated soil and groundwater is highly dependent on a proper understanding of the geological and hydrogeological conditions of the investigated site. The current paper aims at identifying the general geological and hydrogeological conditions of the landfill areas around Bucharest city based on interpretations of the data available in research articles, books, public reports, and geological and hydrogeological maps. Several soil samples were collected, and laboratory analyses were conducted to validate the initial expectations in terms of physical properties of the underlying strata. Results were presented as cross-sections and piezometric maps suitable for developing tridimensional models, conceptual site models and contaminant fate and transport modeling with sufficient accuracy for environmental urban planning. The research provides a quick method which may be used when assessing the general geological and hydrogeological conditions of various sites in environmental studies. The vulnerability of the Romanian legislation in data management and decision-making was also highlighted, therefore a series of recommendations to improve the data availability and quality were provided.

Analytical model of reactive transport processes with spatially variable coefficients

Analytical solutions of partial differential equation (PDE) models describing reactive transport phenomena in saturated porous media are often used as screening tools to provide insight into contaminant fate and transport processes. While many practical modelling scenarios involve spatially variable coefficients, such as spatially variable flow velocity, v ( x ), or spatially variable decay rate, k ( x ), most analytical models deal with constant coefficients. Here we present a framework for constructing exact solutions of PDE models of reactive transport. Our approach is relevant for advection-dominant problems, and is based on a regular perturbation technique. We present a description of the solution technique for a range of one-dimensional scenarios involving constant and variable coefficients, and we show that the solutions compare well with numerical approximations. Our general approach applies to a range of initial conditions and various forms of v ( x ) and k ( x ). Instead of simply documenting specific solutions for particular cases, we present a symbolic worksheet, as supplementary material, which enables the solution to be evaluated for different choices of the initial condition, v ( x ) and k ( x ). We also discuss how the technique generalizes to apply to models of coupled multispecies reactive transport as well as higher dimensional problems.