Hybrid Genetic Algorithm—Local Search Methods for Solving Groundwater Source Identification Inverse Problems

Abstract

Identifying contaminant sources in groundwater is important for developing effective remediation strategies and identifying responsible parties in a contamination incident. Groundwater source identification problems require solution of an inverse problem. Gradient-based local optimization approaches are among the most popular approaches for solving these inverse problems. While these methods are sometimes appropriate, they are not effective for problems that contain several local minima and for problems where the decision space is highly discontinuous or convoluted. For these types of problems, heuristic global search approaches such as genetic algorithms (GAs) are more effective. But methods such as GAs are inefficient for fine-tuning solutions once a near global minimum is found. For problems that contain several local minima,