1‐D Pollutant Migration in Soils of Finite Depth

Abstract

A technique for the analysis of 1‐D pollutant migration through a clay layer of finite depth is presented. This formulation includes dispersive and advective transport in the clay as well as geochemical reactions and permits consideration of the depletion of contaminant in the landfill with time as well as the effect of ground‐water flow in a permeable stratum beneath the clay layer. A limited parametric study is presented to illustrate the effect of considering these factors in the analysis. It is shown that for most practical situations the concentration of contaminant within the ground water beneath the landfill will reach a peak value at a specific time and will then decrease with subsequent time. It is shown that the magnitude of this peak concentration and the time required for it to occur are highly dependent upon the mass of contaminant within the landfill and the sorption capacity of the clay. Other important factors which are examined include the thickness of the clay layer, the advection velocity (relative to the dispersivity), and the ground‐water flow velocity in any permeable strata beneath the clay layer. The implications of these results for optimizing the design of clay liners is then discussed.