On the use of mean groundwater age, life expectancy and capture probability for defining aquifer vulnerability and time-of-travel zones for source water protection.

摘要: Abstract Protection and sustainability of water supply wells requires the assessment vulnerability to contamination delineation well capture zones. Capture zones, or more generally, time-of-travel zones corresponding specific contaminant travel times, are most commonly delineated using advective particle tracking. More recently, probability approach has been used in which a P  = 1 is assigned growth probability-of-capture plume tracked backward time an advective–dispersive transport model. This accounts for uncertainty due local-scale heterogeneities through use macrodispersion. In this paper, we develop alternative zone by applying concept mean life expectancy E (time remaining before being captured well), show how related . Either can be delineate as ultimate zone. The groundwater age A since recharge) also applied context defining pumped aquifer. same way probability, account unresolved macrodispersion, standard tracking neglects. tested on 2D 3D idealized systems, several watershed-scale fields within Regional Municipality Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.