Groundwater Hydraulics and Pollutant Transport

Book excerpt: This rigorous and comprehensive text provides fundamental information geared to students in either engineering or natural sciences courses dealing with groundwater. The first four chapters consider subsurface fluid flow, while the remaining twelve chapters cover subsurface contamination and pollutant transport. Charbeneau views the application of groundwater hydraulics and pollutant transport as a quantitative field. Although quantitative methods are exact, the fields of study are usually homogeneous; laboratory and field methods provide estimates for ideal (not real) fields. What impact does the use of ideal fields have on model predictions? The unknown answer places the study of subsurface flow of water and chemical mass transport in a prime position for continued researchand this readily accessible text opens the door to that research. Outstanding features include: Comprehensive, rigorous, and highly accessible coverageIncludes information on groundwater flow, well hydraulics, field methods for parameter estimation, hydrologic relationships between surface water and groundwater hydrology, mass transport of contaminants by advection, diffusion and dispersion, and special problems posed by nonaqueous phase liquids (oils). Strong focus on applicationsEmpowers readers with knowledge and methodologies that they can use in real, day-to-day practices. Includes 66 worked examples and 178 problems integrated throughout. Examination of standard software being used in the industry todayExposes readers to the USGS MODFLOW model (the most widely used numerical simulation model for groundwater flow) and the USGS MOC3D. These models, together with a user interface (MFI), can be downloaded from the Internet.