Modeling Platform as an Innovation Playground for Advances in
Characterization and Remediation of Contaminated Sites
Abstract
The importance of water supplies cannot be overstated, yet contaminant
monitoring and management have not seen strong innovation in information
and computing technologies (ICT) such as internet-of-things (IoT), big
data, arti>cial intelligence (AI) and numerical modelling.
As a water risk, regulated contaminated sites are unique in that they
have owners with obligation and cost responsibility, creating conditions
that traditionally drive technology innovation. As contaminated site
management moves toward risk management rather than resource intensive
remediation, ICT technologies will be increasingly applied. A high
subsurface complexity, varying land and local weather conditions,
however, strongly impact contaminant fate and transport to make each
site unique. Site uniqueness means that development of innovation is
slow to occur due to lack of scale economic bene>ts. For
this reason, a key technology suited for early adoption is reactive
transport modeling (RTM). Such modelling can be coupled with diverse
compute technologies (e.g. Steefel et al. 2021) supporting long term
site modeling for climate change. In this presentation, we explore a
modeling platform for data-driven RTM. The work draws from extensive
research efforts on quantitative, process-based approaches and
measurement methods that span multiple disciplines (e.g. Sookhak Lari et
al. 2019). Challenges and limitations of such an RTM platform are
discussed, considering: 1) complexity levels, modularity, and
computational requirements; 2) existing models; 3) adaptiveness to
sitespeci> c data and predictive analytics; 4) upscaling of
pore-scale processes; 5) platform Rexibility to account for natural
depletion processes (e.g. variably saturated media; microbial dynamics;
heat transport; contaminant distribution); 6) platform and model
operations to handle in situ remedial activities (e.g. point injections;
surface cover / solarization; phytoremediation); 7) use of intelligent
systems to provide select model parameters from existing big data sets.
An RTM platform is an innovation that has many bene>ts,
providing a ‘digital twin’ for contaminated site decision making and an
‘innovation playground’ for novel characterization and remediation
techniques.