Abstract

Characterizing a Contaminated Aquifer with Spatial Modeling
Track: Environmental Management
Authors: Chad Hobson

The US Department of Energy oversees numerous former uranium mill-tailing sites across the USA, many of which exhibit persistent levels of contamination. At DOE’s Rifle, CO site, predictive and suitability models are being used to evaluate spatiotemporal variations in aquifer geochemistry. With techniques like kriging, the aquifer volume can be interpolated for many parameters of interest offering a means to quickly identify areas preferentially contributing to contaminant persistence.