Installation of a vertical slurry wall around an Italian quarry lake: complications arising and simulation of the effects on groundwater flow |
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| Authors: | D A De Luca M Lasagna A Morelli di Popolo e Ticineto |
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| Institution: | (1) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Via Valperga Caluso 35, 10125 Torino, Italy;(2) ECOGEO S.A., Corso Cadore 46, Torino, Italy |
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| Abstract: | Slurry walls are non-structural barriers that are constructed underground to impede groundwater flow or manage groundwater
control problems. The study area is in the Piemonte plain (Italy), close to the River Po. Quarrying works carried out below
the piezometric surface created two big quarry lakes. The local groundwater system is characterized by a lower semi-confined
aquifer, which is overlain by a semi-permeable bed of clayey peat (aquitard) and an upper unconfined aquifer. Locally, the
peat fades away and the granulometry of this horizon becomes silty sandy. A planned enlargement of the quarry will increase
the size and depth of the quarry lakes. So the aquitard bed between the two aquifers will be damaged, creating a mixing rate
of groundwater. Such a procedure would not be compatible with the presence of two municipal wells upstream from the quarries.
Consequently, the installation of a vertical diaphragm (slurry wall) is recommended to separate the aquifers and to act as
a filter for the groundwater flowing from the unconfined to the semi-confined aquifer. To predict the consequences caused
by the installation of the vertical diaphragm separating the unconfined aquifer and the semi-confined one, a specifically
adjusted finite-difference model was used. The model showed a maximum rising of the water table equal to 12 cm, just upstream
of the diaphragm and for a distance of about 100 m, and a maximum lowering of 2 cm just downstream of the diaphragm. However,
the slurry wall would not cause any change in the piezometric head in the area where there are municipal wells and, hence,
will not have any negative effect on the functionality of the municipal wells. Moreover, the migration of water from the unconfined
aquifer through the vertical diaphragm will stimulate a series of attenuation and auto-depuration processes of eventual contaminants.
These processes are due to the higher crossing time that the groundwater flow takes to go through the vertical barrier (t
a = 96.5 days, whereas for the horizontal semi-permeable layer t
a = 9.6 days). So, the vertical diaphragm can be a resolutive element, representing a mediation and separation factor between
the unconfined and the semi-confined aquifers along the border of the quarrying areas, and a protective barrier for the water
quality of the quarry lake and the semi-confined aquifer. |
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| Keywords: | Numerical modelling Quarry lake Groundwater flow Finite differences Slurry wall Italy |
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