Environmental pollution has become a global concern as consequence of industrializa-tion and urbanization. The ongoing subsurface contamination by dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) bears tremendous hazardous potential for humans and ecosys-tems including aquifer systems. Intended or accidental spill events have led to a vast number of registered sites affected by DNAPL type chemicals. Despite the existence of novel techniques for their exploration, characterization and remediation, economical constraints often limit efforts for risk prevention or reduction, so that information and data to characterize highly complex DNAPL contamination scenarios are often insuffi-cient and compensated by natural attenuation of groundwater-dissolved contaminant plumes. Especially, knowledge on the DNAPL source zone geometry (SZG) and source zone formation are critically required yet very scarce. Against the previously stated background, this cumulative doctoral dissertation critically examined the processes of DNAPL source zone formation at laboratory scale. A comprehensive literature review identified current limitations and open research questions in the latter research field, revealing evidence for the relevance of SZG for plume response at different scales. Giv-en only a limited number of published studies related to DNAPL source zone formation, two simplified experimental setups mimicking source zone formation in an initially fully water-saturated aquifer were developed and intensively tested. The performance of aqueous and non-wetting phase dyes was evaluated for DNAPL release into three non-consolidated porous media using reflective optical imaging in combination with a cus-tom-made image processing and analysis (IPA) framework. The latter suite allowed for the generation of physically plausible DNAPL saturation distributions with determinable level of uncertainty. Then, a limited number of DNAPL release experiments were per-formed under controlled ambient as well as with boundary and initial conditions to generate robust observation data, while further adopting the IPA framework. The latter data was introduced into a numerical multiphase flow model. While most system pa-rameters could be directly determined, the parameters defining the capillary pressure-saturation and relative permeability-saturation retention curves were inversely deline-ated through a classical Monte Carlo analysis. Overall, the successfully calibrated nu-merical setup mimicking the transient DNAPL source zone formation allowed to quanti-fy uncertainties related to the experiment, IPA framework and model setup configura-tion. In addition, a number of new research questions pointing towards future im-provements of laboratory-scale methodologies to understand DNAPL contamination were derived. Especially in light of numerous existing contaminated sites with unclear history and even more vague future, given by potential impacts through climate change and anthropogenic activity, an increasing need for sophisticated strategies to better un-derstand DNAPL contamination and to reduce hazard potential is expected.:Statement I List of publications II Abstract VI Acknowledgements and funding information IX List of figures XIII List of tables XIV Abbreviations and symbols used in the main text XV 1 Introduction and background 1-1 1.1 Motivation of this thesis 1-1 1.2 Incorporation of this thesis in research projects 1-4 1.3 Definition of objectives and workflow strategy of this thesis 1-5 1.4 Formal structure of this thesis 1-11 2 Existing knowledge on DNAPL contamination 2-1 3 Fundamentals of DNAPL migration in porous media 3-1 3.1 Basic concepts for multiphase flow in porous media 3-1 3.2 Capillary pressure-saturation correlation 3-3 3.3 Relative permeability-saturation correlation 3-5 3.4 Balance equations for laminar fluid phase flow in porous media 3-7 4 Core research complex A : Development of a framework for the semi-automatized generation of DNAPL saturation distribution observation data 4-1 5 Core research complex B : Experimental and model-based simulation of DNAPL source zone formation 5-1 6 Summary and conclusions 6-1 6.1 Summary of perceptions for each main section of this thesis 6-1 6.2 New research questions with regard to DNAPL source zone formation at the laboratory scale 6-5 6.3 General recommendations for future works related to DNAPL contamination 6-8 References Ref-1 Appendix I : ENGELMANN ET AL. (2019a) App I-1 Published journal article App I-1 Appendix II : ENGELMANN ET AL. (2019b) App II-1 Published journal article App II-1 Electronic Supplementary Material 1 : Unprocessed raw TIFF format images used for IPA frame-work evaluation App II-26 Electronic Supplementary Material 2 : Sensitivities for color model change and binary conversion algorithms App II-36 Electronic Supplementary Material 3 :Relevance of spatially non-uniform illumination correction and background exclusion App II-76 Appendix III : ENGELMANN ET AL. (2021) App III-1 Published journal article App III-1 Electronic Supplementary Material 1 : Unprocessed raw TIFF format images for IPA framework ap-plication App III-30 Electronic Supplementary Material 2 : Processed images with all intermediate steps of IPA frame-work application App III-58 Electronic Supplementary Material 3 : IPA fitness App III-86 Electronic Supplementary Material 4 : Partial objective functions App III-87 Electronic Supplementary Material 5 : Model verification App III-93