Modeling Organic Contaminant Partitioning in Ground-Water Systems

Effective management of a ground-water system requires description and prediction of the transport and fate of contaminants in that system. This can be facilitated by using mathematical models which accurately represent the physical phenomena operative in the system. One of the most significant phenomena impacting the transport of many organic pollutants is partitioning between the solid (soil) and aqueous (ground-water) phases. The tendency of a contaminant to partition may be roughly approximated from measurements of such constitutive properties as the octanol: water partition coefficient of the contaminant and organic carbon content of the soil. Such rough approximations provide a basis for cursory appraisal, but are inadequate for quantitative system descriptions, particularly where nonlinear equilibrium sorption, kinetically dependent partitioning, or irreversible and/or hysteretic phase distribution phenomena are operative. Accurate simulation of solute transport frequently requires the incorporation of kinetic parameters and/or a nonlinear isotherm relationship to define transport phenomena in the fundamental equations governing mass transport. Laboratory measurements may be utilized to assess sorptive factors of importance, kinetic properties of an organic solute and a soil system, and equilibrium partitioning relationships. Such measurements can be utilized to provide more accurate modeling of contaminant transport.