This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.

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Groundwater models are often developed as tools for environmental decision-making. However, sparse data availability can limit a model's utility by confounding attempts to select a single structural representation of a system or to find a unique and optimal set of model parameters. As a result, estimates of prediction uncertainty and the value of further data collection may be important results of a modeling effort. The Discrimination/Inference to Reduce Expected Cost Technique (DIRECT) is a new method for developing an ensemble of models that collectively define prediction uncertainty in a manner that supports risk-based decision making and monitoring network design optimization. We apply aspects of DIRECT to a modeling investigation of an aquifer system in Central Utah where a major Coalbed Methane gas field is located and a new approach for stimulating gas production is being explored. In the first stage of this study we develop an ensemble of regional MODFLOW models and calculate their relative likelihood using a set of observation data. These regional results and likelihoods are then transferred to a regional MT3D residence time model and to a local advective transport model to provide further information for the well design. A cost function is applied to the transport results to assess the relative expected costs of several proposed well field designs. The set of hydrologic results and associated likelihoods from the ensemble are combined into cost curves that allow for the selection of designs that minimize expected costs. These curves were found to be a useful tool for visualizing the ways that design decisions and hydrologic results interact to generate costs. Furthermore, these curves reveal ways in which uncertainty can add to the cost of implementing a design. A final analysis explored the cost of having uncertain model results by applying and manipulating synthetic likelihood distributions to the transport results. These results suggest the value that may be added by reducing uncertainty through data collection. Overall, the application of DIRECT was found to provide a rich set of information that is not available when ensemble methods and cost consideration are omitted from a modeling study.

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There has been a definitive increase in environmental legislation over the past decade. These new environmental laws established principles such as duty of care and the polluter pay principle. Numerous companies in South Africa have historical impacts, particularly ground water impacts deriving from the period where no or less comprehensive environmental legislation was promulgated. Furthermore, the sudden evolution of environmental legislation has but significant strain on companies to comply with environmental law. The quantification of ground water impact through a methodological approach which can provide adequate information for a decision on the need to disclose the liability as part of the financial audit process is absent in South Africa. This study focussed on deriving a methodology which can be applied in the South African Fertiliser Industry, in assisting with the investigation and quantification of ground water impacts in order to assist with the decision on the need to disclose the liability as part of the financial statements and the newly derived reporting practice of integrated reporting.

Biogeochemical reactions and vadose zone transport, in particular gas phasetransport, are inherently coupled processes. To explore feedback mechanisms between these processes in a quantitative manner, multicomponent gas diffusion and advection are implemented into an existing reactive transport model that includes a full suite of geochemical reactions. Multicomponent gas diffusion is described based on the Dusty Gas Model, which provides the most generally applicable description for gas diffusion.Gas advection is described by Darcy's Law, which in the current formulation, is directly substituted into the transport equations. The model is used to investigate the interactions between geochemical reactions and transport processes with an emphasis to quantify reaction-induced gas migration in the vadose zone. Simulations of pyrite oxidation in mine tailings, gas attenuation in partially saturated landfill soil covers, and methane production and oxidation in aquifers contaminated by organic compounds demonstrate how biogeochemical reactions drive diffusive and advective transport of reactive and non-reactive gases. Pyrite oxidation in mine tailings causes a pressure reduction in the reaction zone and drives advective gas flow into the sediment column, enhancing the oxidation process. Release of carbondioxide by carbonate mineral dissolution partly offsets pressure reduction, and illustrates the role of water-rock interaction on gas transport. Microbially mediated methane oxidation in landfill covers reduces the existing upward pressure gradient, there by decreasing the contribution of advective methane emissions to the atmosphere and enhancing the net flux of atmospheric oxygen into the soil column. At an oil spill site, both generation of CH⁴ in the methanogenic zone and oxidation of CH⁴ in the methanotrophic zone contribute to drive advective and diffusive fluxes. The model confirmed that non-reactive gases tend to accumulate in zones of gas consumption and become depleted in zones of gas production. In most cases, the model was able to quantify existing conceptual models, but also proved useful to identify data gaps, sensitivity, and inconsistencies in conceptual models. The formulation of the model is general and can be applied to other vadose zone systems in which reaction-induced gas transport is of importance.

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No description available.