| Abstract: | Flow, solute transport and pollution remediation through attenuation in unconsolidated porous media were investigated in this study. The variables used in the investigation include soil texture, porosity, topography and hydraulic conductivity. The study revealed that hydraulic conductivity is highly dependent on soil texture, porosity and topography.Hydraulic conductivity was noted to have a controlling influence on groundwater flow and residence time, and the degree of natural attenuation in hydrogeologic systems. Contaminant transport simulated with the MODFLOW Model revealed dominance of advective transport of contaminants in unconsolidated porous media. However, attenuation through sorption (linear isotherm equilibrium controlled) and reaction (first-order irreversible decay) also retarded contaminant plume migration. Thus natural attenuation was found to be highly feasible in clay formations due to low hydraulic conductivity and long groundwater residence times. Though natural attenuation processes including dispersion, diffusion, dilution, mixing, volatilization and biodegradation were not investigated for in this paper, it is shown to be a sound remediation technique of contaminated ground water due to its capacity to destroy or transform contaminants or at least retard their flow. |
