Groundwater Engineering

This textbook employs a technical and quantitative approach to explain subsurface hydrology and hydrogeology, and to offer a comprehensive overview of groundwater-related topics such as flow in porous media, aquifer characterization, contaminant description and transport, risk assessment, and groundwater remediation. It describes the characterization of subsurface flow of pristine and polluted water and provides readers with easily applicable tools for the design of water supply systems, drinking-water source protection, and remediation interventions. Specific applications range from groundwater exploitation as a drinking water supply to the remediation of contaminated aquifers, from the definition and safeguarding of drinking-water sources to the assessment of human health risks in connection with groundwater contamination events.

The book represents an ideal learning resource for upper-undergraduate and graduate students of civil engineering, environmental engineering, andgeology, as well as practitioners in the fields of water resource management and environmental protection who are interested in groundwater engineering and technical hydrogeology.

Autorentext

Prof. Rajandrea Sethi is Head of the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI) of Politecnico di Torino, Italy, where he conducts teaching and research activities in the field of Groundwater Engineering. His research activity focuses on flow and contaminant transport modelling, colloidal transport in porous media, groundwater monitoring, development of novel environmental reclamation technologies, and environmental nanotechnologies. He participated in the design and monitoring of the first permeable reactive barrier emplaced in Italy, and for ten years he was responsible for the monitoring of the groundwater system within the Project "MOSE" for the defence of the Venice Lagoon from high tides. In the framework of several projects funded by the Italian Government and of three projects funded by the EU (FP7 AQUAREHAB, FP7 NANOREM, and H2020 REGROUND projects), he has investigated the application and transport of microscale and nanoscale particles for the remediation of contaminated aquifer systems. In 2012 he was the Official of the Italian delegation at a Senior officials' meeting of the Carnegie Group (G8+5) at Joint Research Centre in Brussels. He is Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Research.

Antonio Di Molfetta was a professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy until 2013, where he first established in 1992 and then taught the first Groundwater Engineering course in Italy. From 1992 to 2001 he served as President of the Engineering Program in Environmental Engineering. In the course of his academic career he published more than 150 research papers in the fields of groundwater and petroleum engineering, fluid mechanics in porous media and coordinated several research programs. In addition to his academic role, Prof. Di Molfetta conducted a consulting activity serving also as expert advisor for important legal procedures. Since 2013 he has been active as consultant for primary industrial groups in the groundwater engineering field.

Inhalt

Basic Concepts.- Theoretical foundations of the groundwater flow equation.- Analytical solutions of the groundwater flow equation in a polar coordinate system.- Aquifer characterization.- Specific capacity and well efficiency.- Optimization of the productive capacity of a water supply system.- Aquifer vulnerability and contamination risk.- Definition of protection areas of drinking water sources.- Groundwater contaminants.- Mechanisms of contaminant propagation in aquifers.- Theoretical foundations of the di erential equations of mass transport.- Analytical solutions to the di erential equation of mass transport for conservative solutes.- Analytical solutions of the di erential equation of mass transport for reactive solutes.- Transport of immiscible substances.- Characterization of a contamination event.- Human health risk assessment.- Remediation of contaminated groundwater.- Appendices.