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Well Vulnerability: A Quantitative Approach for Source Water Protection
Author(s) -
Frind E.O.,
Molson J.W.,
Rudolph D.L.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2006.00230.x
Subject(s) - wellhead , vulnerability (computing) , environmental science , computer science , vulnerability assessment , risk analysis (engineering) , petroleum engineering , geology , business , computer security , psychotherapist , psychology , psychological resilience
The concept of vulnerability of drinking water sources is reviewed, and a quantitative approach for assessing well vulnerability for complex three‐dimensional ground water systems is developed. The approach focuses on the relative expected impact of potential contaminant sources at unknown locations within a well capture zone, providing relative measures of intrinsic well vulnerability, including the expected times of arrival of a contaminant, the dispersion‐related reduction in concentration, the time taken to breach a certain quality objective, and the corresponding exposure times. Thus, the result of the analysis includes the usual advective travel time information used in conventional wellhead protection analysis, plus a set of selected quantitative measures expressing the expected impact. The technique is based on adjoint theory and combines forward‐ and backward‐in‐time transport modeling using a standard numerical flow and transport code. The methodology is demonstrated using the case study of a complex glacial multiaquifer system in Ontario. The new approach will be useful in helping water managers develop more physically based and quantitative wellhead protection strategies.