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Probability Method Used in Predicting Contaminant Risk in Groundwater Adjacent to Airport

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Abstract

A reliability approach, first-order reliability method, is used to develop a probabilistic modeling of reactive transport in porous media. The approach is potentially attractive because it can provide both a probability estimate and probabilistic sensitivity measures. In this work, we extend the application of the reliability methods to the probabilistic assessment of contaminant concentration exceeding critical groundwater contamination levels in airport areas following both continuous release and instantaneous injection scenarios. Failure probability is predicted for “no-information” and “partial-information” about the leakage, and compared with deterministic calculations. Sensitivity analysis demonstrates the main sources of uncertainty by importance factors, and their changing trends with distance from the leakage were presented.

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Acknowledgments

The funding for the present work through the Norwegian State Education Loan Fund is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank Professor Farrokh Nadim for the great support.

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  1. University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1047, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Pengxin Zhang, Per Aagaard & Lars Gottschalk

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  1. Pengxin Zhang
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  2. Per Aagaard
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Correspondence to Pengxin Zhang.

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Zhang, P., Aagaard, P. & Gottschalk, L. Probability Method Used in Predicting Contaminant Risk in Groundwater Adjacent to Airport. Water Air Soil Pollut 211, 323–339 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-009-0303-6

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