Calibration and Reliability in Groundwater
Modelling: Credibility of Modelling
(Proceedings of ModelCARE 2007 Conference, held in
Denmark, September 2007). IAHS Publ. 320, 2008, 27-33.
Uncertainty
assessment for contaminant leaching from flood water retention areas
E. Bethge & U. Mohrlok
Institute for Hydromechanics, UniversitŠt Karlsruhe (TH), Kaiserstra§e 12, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
Abstract A probabilistic framework was developed to quantify the risk of groundwater contamination by flood water seepage from retention areas. The involved flow and transport processes have been described and a mass balance model was developed to calculate the contaminant infiltration. During the model application the flood data (flood water depth, flood duration, etc.) were compiled in scenarios and were linked to the soil information in the retention area. The uncertainty of the saturated hydraulic conductivity and of the linear sorption coefficient of the topsoil was described in probability density functions generated from field data and literature values and can be used for Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the risk of groundwater contamination.
Key words flood water retention area; groundwater; contamination; risk assessment; soil; Bayesian update