Potential contamination from hazardous and solid waste landfills stemming from
population increase, rapid industrialization, and the proliferation of assembly plants
known as the maquiladoras, are of major concern in the U.S.-Mexican border area.
Additionally, historical, current, and future stresses on the Hueco Bolson alluvial aquifer
in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez area due to excessive groundwater withdrawal can affect
contaminant migration in the area. In the current study, an updated and improved threedimensional
numerical groundwater flow and transport model is developed using a
current Hueco Bolson groundwater availability model as its basis. The model with
contaminant transport is required to access and characterize the extent of vulnerability of
the aquifer to potential contamination from landfills in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border
area. The model developed in this study is very capable of serving as the basis of future
studies for water availability, water quality, and contamination assessments in the Hueco
Bolson.
The implementation of fate and transport modeling and the incorporation of the
Visual MODFLOW® pre and post processor, requiring MODFLOW 2000 data conversion, enabled significant enhancements to the numerical modeling and computing
capabilities for the Hueco Bolson. The model in the current research was also developed
by employing MT3DMS©, ZONEBUDGET, and Visual PEST® for automated
calibrations.
Simulation results found that the Hueco Bolson released more water from storage
than the aquifer was being recharged in response to increased pumping to supply the
growing border area population. Hence, significant head drops and high levels of
drawdown were observed in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez area. Predictive simulations were
completed representing scenarios of potential contamination from the border area sites.
Fate and transport results were most sensitive to hydraulic conductivities, flow
velocities, and directions at the sites. Sites that were located within the vicinity of the El
Paso Valley and the Rio Grande River, where head differences and permeabilities were
significant, exhibited the highest potentials for contaminant migration.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3275 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Nwaneshiudu, Okechukwu |
| Contributors | Corapcioglu, Yavuz, Zhan, Hongbin |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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