Theme: 10. Characterization, Fate and Transport

Topic Area: 10e. Groundwater Modeling: Advancements and Applications

Formatted Title:

Leveraging Open Source Options to Improve Groundwater Modeling Capabilities, Validation, and Verification

Background/Objectives:

Groundwater contamination due to industrial processes is a recurring issue in most of the modern world. Groundwater flow modelling can be utilized to determine what remedial techniques are best suited for a contaminated site, which can be completed using various modelling suites that all utilize MODFLOW to perform the mathematics behind the model. A chemical manufacturing factory in a temperate region with high precipitation and low elevation with a variety of chemical contaminants in the subsurface from prior manufacturing techniques is using a groundwater flow model understanding of support fate and transport hydrodynamics. For the groundwater modelling performed, two types of models were developed in parallel with each other: an open-source model using Flopy and a commercial grade model using Groundwater Vistas. This presentation presents the lessons learned in this process as well as pros and cons for each approach.

Approach/Activities:

The work that was carried out to develop the groundwater model spanned lab and field scale as there is data processing and assimilation that is being carried out in addition to field work that was performed over the entire facility to collect hydrogeological data. The field-scale work is being used to better characterize and understand the field site for usage within the groundwater flow model, while the lab-scale work is being carried out to process field data and to develop various model scenarios. The modelling was completed in parallel between open source and a commercially available software where the model results were compared with each other as a form of quality control, and model validation and verification.

Results/Lessons Learned:

Through development of a groundwater model in parallel between a free open source and commercial software resulted in lessons learned that are valuable to the environmental modeling community. While the freedom and flexibility of Flopy allowed for greater (and easier) discretization of the model domains properties, it also produced issues in development that the closed source Groundwater Vistas would have automatically fixed for the user (overlapping boundary conditions, and data matrices containing information on model cell connectivity were the most pertinent). Utilizing an open-source environment to develop the model had shown the importance of thorough understanding of a groundwater flow model may have been unknown to the user with a closed source environment. It is of importance that groundwater flow modelers (and modelers of any type) possess an understanding of not only the mathematics behind the model, but also of the creation of the model inputs and how the structure may affect model outputs. The presentation will include comparisons of outputs between each flow model and inform the modeling community on potential advantages and pitfalls when choosing a modeling interface. Further development of the results will be provided in the final abstract.

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Antonio Manzella

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