Uncertainty Analyses in Environmental Sciences and Hydrogeology: Methods and Applications to Subsurface Contamination

This book highlights several methods and quantitative implementations of both probabilistic and fuzzy-based approaches to uncertainty quantification and uncertainty propagation through environmental subsurface pollution models with uncertain input parameters. The book focuses on methods as well as applications in hydrogeology, soil hydrology, groundwater contamination, and related areas (e.g., corrosion of nuclear waste canisters). The methods are illustrated for a broad spectrum of models, from non-differential I/O models to complex PDE solvers, including a novel 3D quasi-analytical model of contaminant transport, and a site-specific computer model of dissolved contaminant migration from a DNAPL (Dense Non Aqueous Phase Liquid) pollution source.

Dr. Rachid Ababou is currently Professor (Emeritus) at Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse (part of the federal university of Toulouse), and a researcher at the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (CNRS affiliated laboratory), within the Porous Media & Biology group. He holds a Dr-Ing. Degree 1981 from Grenoble, and a PhD in Civil Engineering 1988 from MIT. He has held previously positions at Princeton University, at the SwRI research center in San Antonio (TX), and at the French CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique near Paris). His research focuses on coupling, upscaling, and numerical modeling of various flow and transport phenomena in heterogeneous and/or deformable geological media. Applications of his work include capillary water-gas flows in porous media, unsaturated soil hydrology, watershed hydrology, groundwater flow modeling, environmental time series analyses, coupled hydro-mechanical behavior of geological radioactive waste repositories (USA and France), uncertainty analyses, geostastistics and stochastic modeling (e.g. random field generation of subsurface structures). He has authored and published a number of US and French R&D reports (M.I.T., US. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CEA Saclay, ANDRA, IRSN, Swiss Topo, ADEME, …).

Dr. Jean-Marie Côme holds a Ph.D. in Water Sciences at the Paris School of Mines (Mines Paris Tech) in 1995, on aquifer remediation, in collaboration with BRGM (Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières). He has since joined the BURGEAP group, successively as project engineer, then project chief, then head of Industrial Environment in 2000. He is now the director of R&D in the GINGER group, R&D department, in Lyon, France. His research interests are in the areas of subsurface, air and water pollution.

Dr. Juliette Chastanet is a 2000 graduate from the EOST engineering school (Ecole & Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre) in Strasbourg, France, and holds her Ph.D. from the doctoral school Earth, Universe, Environment, in 2004 at the University of Grenoble, France (on gas flows in fractured porous media). She is a research engineer & head of projects in the GINGER-BURGEAP group, R&D department, Lyon, France (headed by colleague and co-author J.-M. Côme). Her research interests are in the areas of subsurface water flow, subsurface pollution, and decontamination.

Dr. Manuel Marcoux is currently a professor at the Université Paul Sabatier (UPS) in Science & Engineering,  Department of Mechanics and a researcher at the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (France). He holds a doctoral degree in Fluid Mechanics from and holds an HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) from the UPS Toulouse. His research in the Porous Media & Biology group at IMFT is both experimental and theoretical. It concerns heat and mass transport and contamination phenomena in porous media (soils, aquifers, cracked media), for instance coupled thermo-diffusion in porous media and other materials; or migration of Volatile Organic Compounds in buildings and civil engineering structures.

Dr. Michel Quintard currently holds the position of CNRS Director of Research (Emeritus) at the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (France) and has previously held the position of laboratory director at the LEPT-ENSAM lab in Bordeaux (France), and president of the Scientific Council of the French IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et Sûreté Nucléaire). His research in the Porous Media & Biology group at IMFT concerns transport mechanisms in porous media, with focus on upscaling complex multiphase and multi-component transport phenomena from microscale to macroscopic scales, with applications to many areas of science and engineering: hydrology and environmental sciences; petroleum engineering; nuclear engineering; chemical engineering; material sciences in aeronautics; etc.