Optimal ground-water quality control and monitoring with incomplete information

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5121000

Lee, Sangil

This research develops a new method for optimal groundwater quality management and monitoring in aquifer remediation when aquifer information is limited. The objective is to find the most cost-effective aquifer management policy for collecting site measurements, pumping, and treating contaminated aquifers. Subject to constraints on decision variables and on the reliability of meeting water quality standards, this method minimizes the expected value of the cost in the remaining periods. The optimal aquifer management policy is expressed as the sum of a deterministic and a stochastic control term. The former is obtained by solving a deterministic optimization problem and the latter by a perturbation approximation to the stochastic optimal control problem. Extended Kalman filtering is incorporated into the proposed optimization method to improve the accuracy of the estimated state and parametric variables using available measurements. A hypothetical contamination case of a two-dimensional unsteady flow and transport for a persistent solute is studied to illustrate the applicability of the methodology. The effectiveness of the proposed method is studied under various conditions, and then compared with the cost and reliability of the deterministic feedback control method through Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, this research develops a method to determine the location of an additional monitoring well while the aquifer is being cleaned up. The candidate monitoring well sites are ranked based on the evaluation of the cost-to-go function, an index of costs expected until the goals of remediation are met.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 5121000
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290300 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540220* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
AQUIFERS
CONTAMINATION
CONTROL
COST
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
GROUND WATER
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MASS TRANSFER
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MONITORING
MONTE CARLO METHOD
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
QUALITY CONTROL
REMEDIAL ACTION
SOLUTES
WATER
WATER POLLUTION